Tractors, Meadows and Wildflowers

Until the tractor-mower arrived, the field looked pretty ordinary, just a meadow turning brown in August, full of tall grasses with hardly any blooming flowers. Except for the Canadian thistles with their puffs of pinky-purple blooms atop three feet of exceedingly prickly stems and leaves. So the sound of the tractor making paths up and down to cut the blowing grass sent me running for my camera to capture the thistles before they were destroyed. That confluence of meadows, tractor and thistles stirred new paintings in my mind’s eye.

Days later, with a dozen snapshots of the meadow pinned up for study in my studio, I began a new series of pastels, the latest in my paintings inspired by scenes around Chautauqua County. Like the impressionists whose work is forever associated with certain towns in France, I had decided that the Chautauqua countryside was so lovely I wanted to devote myself to portraying her beauty. Earlier series included monoprints, pastels, and large acrylic paintings that included a 12-foot long diptych depicting hand-built Amish haystacks, a painting of a huge, grape harvester in Westfield, and another 12-foot diptych of the sun setting on hundreds of ducks floating on the harbor in Barcelona.

After 16 years, the markets, ponds, woods and fields around our property on Route 394 and beyond, still offer me fresh, exciting images to paint in every season.

Gloria Plevin

Canadian Thistles and Tractor, Pastel H28" x W27"