I have a deep dark secret: I enjoy suffering. It’s taken me years to realize this, but there it is. The worse the weather, the happier I am. Here is a fine example:

The sun is now shining, but notice my paint box. It has drifted over in the two hours since I set up. I could only paint facing east, with my back to the wind and my tripod set into the bullet hard drift. It’s just stupid not to give up and go home! But here’s the portrait of a happy fool after a painting session:

I don’t think it’s some cheap Hemingway man’s man great-white-hunter crap that makes me so happy. I don’t feel at all like I wrestled nature and won. I just showed up and, as Robert Frost said, “that made all the difference.” It’s not merely nature that I’m after, it’s what happens in nature:

I look at this picture and I can hear the wind ripping through the willows and pushing me up off of my heels. I can remember ground blizzards blowing snow into the paint and turning it the consistency of frosting. Occasionally the entire landscape would be whipped into a white nothing, and I’d just wait for the snow to blow through. Can I mix an intensely personal experience into reds and blues? Can I describe the feel of January wind and the thrill of watching a snow devil spin a path across the hillside with a brush? Hardly. But what a privilege it is to try:

“January Squall”
9×12. Oil.

Posted by Aaron: March 31st, 2008 and filled under: Field Notes .
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