Canvas
Near Augusta
I have a neatly folded pile of heavy cotton canvas and imagine unfolding it and attaching it to a wall. I won’t need to build a frame because I’ll gesso it on the wall, paint it on the wall, and display it in the same way. I’ll need to re-arrange my current studio space to accommodate it or rent the corner of a warehouse somewhere else. Once it’s unfolded, it’ll be close to nine feet by eighteen feet. I purchased the bulk canvas years ago and used half of it for four large, stretched canvases. I’ll use what’s left to paint something big. It will incorporate huge view of Montana, the Dakotas, Minnesota—a horizon that’s filled with sagebrush, cattle, or wheat. It’s impossible to predict what it will become but I like thinking about it.
I imagine a space that I can walk into. Then completely disoriented because I can’t locate myself in relation to the foreground, or the background as I’ve never been in a painting before. It might feel like an overwhelming moment on one of the countless road trips I’ve taken during the day and at night—sitting in the hot dust of August, or a brittle night in winter. At some point on every trip, I pull the vehicle over to the side of the road, or into an adjacent field and linger for a while. If it’s dark, I stare into the blanket of stars which I rarely see. Sometimes if it’s during the day, I open the tailgate and sit with my lunch, or dinner. I might even have food left that my wife prepared and a thermos of still hot coffee. If it’s quiet and I’m in the middle of nowhere, the crickets, grasshoppers and meadowlarks will be loud around me. If I’m lucky, the air will be heavy with sage and sweet grass and I can just drift.
Songs :: Break My Heart Sweetly by John Moreland, and Plains (Eastern Montana Blues) by George Winston
© C. Davidson