Of Dust and Dew
This painting of a horse running toward you at sunrise near a beautiful stream revives the artist's childhood memories
Of Dust and Dew
by Ellen Rice
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It was in the 1980s that I first began to experiment with painting with chalk pastels, and Of Dust and Dew was my first painting using these messy sticks of color.
I'd never liked chalk, and still don't. It brings memories of teachers scraping the substance on the chalkboard at school. But I grew up with some beautiful paintings created by my mother with pastels and having bought a small set that was on sale, I was curious to see what I could do with them. As I'd learned to do from my high school art teacher, Irene Silverstein, I started the painting with the light source and worked forward. I had no idea at the start what it was going to be. It just seemed to paint itself as the scene before me came to life. One of the last things I did was add the horse running toward you in the field on the left. Once he was in there, the painting felt complete. It would be years later before I realized that the scene I'd painted was a memory or combination of memories of a place where I'd been very happy as a child, a place where for the amount of money I earned raking leaves I could pay for an hour riding a horse. I was only in that place, East Lansing, Michigan, a few years, but its influence and happy memories have stayed with me all of my life. It was there I learned not only to ride horses but also to figure skate. We were close to Michigan State University and they had a wonderful skating rink and programs. Carol Heiss had trained there and her instructor and Olympic judge was still there when I went out on the ice with my new skates for the first time. For a too brief time she was my instructor, too. She'd picked me out of a group of young beginning skaters and talked with my mother. My mother didn't feel she wanted to spend the money on lessons, but "Bernie" decided to give me instructions anyway. And then we moved back to Maryland. Maryland brought the end to both of my young passions. Riding horses was too expensive in the metro area and the one ice rink near us closed when the Beltway came through, but the love and memories of both sports stayed stayed with me and they come out once in awhile in paintings like Of Dust and Dew, paintings that just seem to paint themselves but in truth come from thoughts and loves and memories established long ago. Ellen |
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