In contrast to almost everywhere else in the country this year, it has been a near-perfect summer here in Interior Alaska. Bright, sunny days. Just enough rainfall. Almost no smoke from wildfires. So I have to wonder, "Why have I been painting snow for the last six weeks?" My three new paintings, each quite different in approach, have one thing in common--my preoccupation with winter.
Snow Dreams ©Kesler Woodward 2023 Acrylic on canvas 30" x 40"
I love the dense tapestry of snow that the boreal forest becomes in winter. Here, we have weeks without wind, and I like to watch the snow drift softly, inexorably, onto every branch and twig, gradually closing the deep perspective of the bare fall woods into weavings of color field abstraction. Snow Dreams is simply what its title describes...my memory and dreams, in the heat of summer, of that rich tapestry in winter.
What to Want ©Kesler Woodward 2023 Acrylic on canvas 16" x 20"
I do love the months of continuous daylight here in summer, especially the last hours of evening and wee hours of morning when the midnight sun grazes and just slightly, briefly falls below the horizon. But for beauty and magic, to me there's no comparison to the twilight dusk and dawn of winter--so welcome each day in the months of long darkness. The cold, clear air of midwinter enables the wan sun's transfiguration of the treetops as it struggles to rise a degree or two, almost due south, over the Alaska Range.
It's July, and I'm happy to go to Goldpanner baseball games, run the verdant trails in shorts, watch Dorli's flowers bloom and her vegetables burgeon toward harvest, and admire the summer growth of exotic trees in the University arboretum and around our home. But in my studio, my dreams are all of snow and the light of winter.
