20x24”. Oil on Linen. 2016

This took me three years. Not three years of continuous work, of course, but three years of watching for the same effect, which occurred in the late afternoon during a week or so in early October. Like Brigadoon, this goose field would come alive for a short time, and then return to slumber.

”Come alive” referring to a phenomenon in which the lowering fall sun hits upright objects with a heavenly orange light for a few minutes before sunset. The time is often called The Golden Hour, although the effect lasts far less than an hour. Here in Newtown, Ohio, it might last for ten minutes, if you’re lucky.

But those ten minutes, spent frantically observing and painting, barely allow one time to cover the canvas. There is not time to compare that canvas to the motif. The effect disappears quickly, and then the sun goes down. You have to evaluate the success or failure of your efforts from memory.

Cinematographers and painters love The Golden Hour. For the latter, it provides the only relief from the eternal penumbra of winter, and many of the most successful winter landscapes capture that narrow window of time. The great Pennsylvania master Daniel Garber made a career of it.