Amish Schoolhouse at Dusk

This is a study for a large piece I'm working on. I love the quality of the light here, and the starkness of the school, kids and trees silhouetted against the fading light. I'll post some progress pictures of the large one tomorrow.

Amish Blue/Green

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I've been told that the original reason for the Amish painting their doors blue was to 'advertise' the fact that the daughter of the house was available for marriage. I'm not sure that's true any more, since all the houses we saw had blue doors...or maybe there were a lot of single girls around? Anyway, I love that colour, and I've had an epic today trying to get it right. Turns out it's actually Thalo green (blue shade) mixed with white, which I had to drive 20 miles mid-painting to find. I don't think the photo does it justice, the original is a lot more luminous - but the camera just wouldn't capture it perfectly. I'm going to try again tomorrow in the natural morning light.

Red Gloves & Ice Box

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This Amish lad was on his way home from school, carrying his lunchbox - an icebox from Walmart. The megastore is actually a really common place to see Amish people, and I'm not sure how that fits in with the whole 'shunning of modern life' ideology. Anyway, it makes for a bizarre vision of culture clashes seeing kids wandering around the ultra modern brightly lit store wearing big hats. home-made clothes and massive wellies. I have a hard time not gawking, as I'm sure many outsiders do. I want to be respectful, but at the same time I'm so curious and drawn to them - as an artist the uniqueness of the situation is tantalisingly inspiring.

I have a book called 'Among the Amish' by the Welsh artist Kieth Bowen, and it's amazing. He spent a few summers working with an Amish community and they allowed him to paint them in their most intimate lives. I'd like to try that sometime - but our visits to the East coast are so brief....maybe one day.

Tahoe Quarterly Magazine

Thankyou Tahoe Quarterly for writing an article about me in your current Winter Edition!

Horsing around

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Work is a big part of the Amish lifestyle, since the conveniences of modern life are shunned, everything has to be done by hand. From a young age, Amish children work the fields, help build houses, sew, cook and repair. It's hard to imagine kids in our urban society being willing to roll up their sleeves and muck in at 3am when the cows need milking. It was inspiring then, to see that the kids still have that youthful playfulness, so innocent and energetic - it seems we grow up too fast in a world where everything is so easily available to us through the internet, TV, and 'virtual' games where we don't even have to stand up to pretend we're shooting a gun, or riding a skateboard, or dancing, or playing a guitar. What happened to making your own fun?

Amish Boy with Sled

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I thought this little boy was the sweetest I've ever seen, with his blonde hair sticking out from under his black hat, and his big wellies clunking through the snow.I'm not sure where he was intending to use his sled though - Pennsylvania is pretty flat!

Amish Children

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This little oil study is inspired by my recent trip to Pennsylvania to visit my husband's family over Christmas. There is a large Amish community there, so you see them a lot. The Amish people shun most of the conveniences of modern life such as electricity and cars, and they also shun any form of vanity such as photographs, believing that pride is a sin which should be avoided - even family pride. This is why I have given them blank faces. From an artistic point of view this actually emphasises the body language, and I was intrigued by the visual dialogue you can create when no facial expression or eye contact is available. I'm a people watcher by nature, so I'm always mentally sketching when I'm in public places.