Beginning Behind the Safeway with a Toned Canvas

These bland urban inter-spaces have long had a prominent place in American landscape painting, with Edward Hopper probably the recognized master of the form. Hopper’s work seems to comment on a particular American disconnectedness, a sense of alienation.

While I revere Hopper, this is not quite what I want the work to be about. I think we live in a different age, a more connected time. These lonely, marginalized spaces exist, but perhaps how we see potential and the possibility for change in them.

Another contemporary American painter who deals with what he calls these “Non-Places” is Trevor Young, someone I was in high school with. Trevor takes this nondescriptness to a grand scale and adds some really beautiful paint handling to the mix.

Today I was aware that in standing in the Safeway parking lot I was technically ‘trespassing’, standing on privately-owned space that is not truly public, shared, communal space. The act of setting up my easel and my painting paraphernalia is a way of claiming this space, domesticating it, somehow making it more human scale and accessible. This was brought home to me when a gentleman pulled over in his truck and stepped up to chat with me about my painting. He was an artist himself, someone who likes to draw. I felt that, if only for a short while, I had made this otherwise fairly unwelcoming space one where conversations and artistic chit-chat were possible.

view of the back of the Safeway and my easel

The painting at the end of the day has a reasonable amount of progress and a good start to subsequent sessions. I was only able to work on this for an hour and forty minutes. It was roughly 24° and very, very cold even though it was sunny. Let’s see what subsequent painting sessions hold for this work.

painting as it stands at the end of the session

It immediately became clear that I’d have to change the painting to incorporate the now visible grass and the slushier snow.

Painting begins on Day 2 with the snow melting

Not long after I’d started painting I turned around to see a reporter and a videographer standing nearby. They asked me if I’d felt this earthquake this morning. I said “No, but things seem to have shifted slightly between day before and today.” The clip showed up on the evening news today and is embedded and linked to below. Pretty hilarious. I guess I can now put an ‘as seen on TV’ sticker on the painting. (as a side note, the reporter seriously deserves an award for pronouncing my name perfectly).

videographer from WTHR Channel 13

link to video: http://www.wthr.com/video?autoStart=true&topVideoCatNo=default&clipId=5427584&flvUri=&partnerclipid=

After the hubbub, it was time to buckle down and work. I modified, painted over or added to every area of the painting.

I painted the grassy spots revealed by the snow melt and tried to make the trees more organically shaped and varied. The local bank branch is visible at the left edge of the painting as is Bob’s Gas Station in the background. The sign that’s at that slightly crooked angle reads ‘Illinois St’ and “Stop Ahead”.  I also added the oncoming SUV and the cars stopped at the light because the picture really needed some sense of human activity and human scale. The headlights and brake lights are all on because I’ve always felt that seeing headlights on during the day has a surreal touch to it. As to the ambiguity about which lane the oncoming SUV is in? I’m going to chalk that up to artistic license and how swervy some drivers are.

finished painting- 'Westfield and Illinois in Winter' 16" x 20" (as seen on TV!)

The painting’s finished and I’m pretty happy with it for a quick two days of work. The important thing is- there are some pretty unique stories that came out of the process.