2020
The Chauga Narrows are in the mountains of South Carolina, where the slow and peaceful little Chauga River turns a corner and goes through a narrow gap in the rock and drops suddenly. The hike is a challenging one, as the trail has overgrown and trees have fallen all along the way. But this spot is well worth seeing and I was lucky enough to catch some very nice light while I was there. I sketched on the spot for a good while and took several photographs for reference. I worked on this in my studio for several weeks, and found many sticking points both in the composition and the idea. Capturing a moment in a place in painting is a long process of many steps of getting close and slipping away. I ended up at a place where it all came together and the moment had come back. It's a strange dance to paint towards finding something with no real roadmap to go by. You can recreate from a photograph, but to make a painting more than a glorified photograph you step into another space to communicate with all of the things that made that image special in the first place. Unimportant pieces have to be taken away and others heightened until just the right mix is found. I think I could finally hear the water when I got there.