I never meant to be a historian.  No, I’m all about NOW when I’m painting.  I look for the way the light hits the side of a building or what flowers are in bloom.  I want to feel the air and sun.   I think about colors and shapes.  When I paint with the plein air group, I enjoy hearing the history of the locations we visit, but I don’t think about whether it will be there if I come back another day.

But over the years that I have been painting, I have recorded in paint several things that no longer exist.

The garden in this painting is one of those.  I first saw it when I visited my parents in North Carolina, probably 15 years ago.  A Methodist minister and his gardener wife had moved into the neighborhood.  She dug out weeds, hauled in compost, planted bulbs, and made a beautiful terraced garden in the red clay and rocks on the steep hillside.   On the spring day I visited, it was spectacular.  I took some pictures and made a small drawing in oil pastels to capture the feel of the garden.  I recently came across the drawing, and thought it would be a good reference for other paintings.  I did this small one to refamiliarize myself before attempting a larger painting.

Then I realized that this garden no longer exists except in my mind.   As typical of Methodists, the minister moved after a few years, and his wife left her garden behind.  The last time I saw it, the hillside had been reclaimed by the natural vegetation of the NC piedmont.  And yet, her garden continues to inspire me, as I hope my paintings will in some way “pay it forward”.

Do you have a painting of something that no longer exists?  Do you value it more because of that?   Do you ever think about how the beauty you create in a moment may inspire others years later?