Yellow Reading Chair and Apple Tree- plein air

This painting anticipated the mood of today. This January 2020, I brought my daughters reading chair down from their bedroom. I placed it in the snow under one of our apple trees. This painting came to me as I was waking up and instead of questioning it I just followed along. On my second day of painting, I came inside to warm up and my instagram feed was filled with paintings of mountains in sunlight and grand vistas. A small fit of jealousy swept over me. But then as I went back outside, hunkered in with blanket, gloves and our dog Windzy at my side, I continued to paint and I thought "this chair, in my backyard, under an apple tree we planted" ...'this is my mountain". It was a moment of epiphany. For several years I have been considering what it means to look down...things right before us and how this differs both emotionally and intellectually from a vista. The emptiness of the chair, the coolness of the snow the promise of apples it is a painting for today. Surely plein air painting is expansive enough to celebrate a humble chair under an apple tree in winter...part reality, part dream.