This Old House

I think that my new series of oil pastels wouldn't have come to fruition if my husband, Eric, and I hadn't purchased a 2 1/2 acre parcel of land two years ago. It is nestled at the end of a long lane on the edge of town. There is a small house, built in 1900, on the front of the property. A family of four lived in it and owned the property for 100 years. It never had running water. At some point in the last two decades it was abandoned with all of its contents and left to the forces of nature. I realize that to many people it looks like a trash heap, but to me, it's a treasure trove.

The house is unsafe to enter, but you can see many of the

contents through the windows and holes in the walls. It is clear that the floor has completely collapsed. It looks like it is full of interesting things . . . And a lot of garbage as well. I can admit that. Last spring I recovered a plastic airplane mobile from the interior of the house. I enjoyed cleaning the decade worth of dust off of the surface and consequently restoring some of it's original splendor.

A year ago, I was lamenting the fact that being on a tight budget made it difficult to buy canvases to paint on. I remembered a moment from one of my high school art classes in which my teacher, the great Mr. Willig, was talking about how some artists used to paint on any surface they could find. The desire to paint overwhelmed the need for conventional materials.

My mind immediately went to the old, dilapidated house and I remembered the rear wall was built with green steel siding, a decent surface for painting. I also thought the flaking paint on the wood siding could easily be consolidated with a little fish glue and would make a nice frame for a painting or two.

Two Sweet Peas by Kimberly Machovec-Smith

This is among the first oil pastels I made using only materials from this house. I actually use the reverse side of the siding for my pastel drawing. It is silver in color and it has less texture than the outer surface. This image is two sprouted sweet peas. I gave it to my friend and her new husband for a wedding present last spring. I loved the way the root of the rear pea embraces the body of the one in front of it, intertwining and growing together. I loved the theme of awakening and ofcourse fertility, the begining of a new generation and growth all wrapped into a wedding present.