D. Omer 'Salty' Seamon

This week I went to Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology in Terre Haute, Indiana to deliver 22 paintings for an upcoming show there.   [So exciting!].

I knew that Rose-Hulman had been the recipient of the D. Omer Seamon art legacy and that they had dozens of original works by him, but imagine my utter delight when I realized that the room we went to to sign the paperwork was full of these beautiful works - and that I'd get a bit of time to see them up close. 

In the pic above, Christy Brinkman, curator of the Rose-Hulman art collection, is holding one of Salty's rural landscapes.  It's a painting of a small rural cemetery.   I love these places and am thrilled to see them painted in such a warm and peaceful way. 

This is a large painting of some western Indiana barns - some of my own favorite subjects.  I love his treatment of the sky and foreground grass.

One corner of the room is covered with his smaller works hanging on the wall.  Treasures, every single one.  

This tiny painting was about the size of a business card, if that.  Rumor has it that he said the small ones were painted with 'a drop of watercolor'.   

I have a lot to learn from Salty Seamon and fervently hope that I get a chance to spend more time with these beautiful works this year.  

Haan Museum of Indiana Art

Haan Museum living room with three Hoosier masterpieces on the wall. 
[There were many more in that room.]

A couple of weeks ago, Lily and I drove up to Lafayette, Indiana to get my painting from the 'Hoosier Women Artists:  Works Selected for the Indiana Statehouse' exhibit that just ended at the Haan Mansion Museum of Indiana Art.

This museum is amazing.   We met the people who restored the house from a crumbling wreck and who filled it full of the treasures of Indiana art and American furniture.  We toured the house and were overwhelmed with the wonderful things there.  Tickets are $10 for adults and well worth the price given that this place is packed full of rich architectural and artistic history.   It will take me several more trips to fully appreciate all that is there.

On this trip I was there to pick up my painting, 'Winter White', which had hung in the Lt. Governor's offices for a year and then came here for the special exhibit of all the paintings in one place.  Here it is hanging on the wall in one of the upstairs bedrooms.

Here's a full view of the piece, which, I am happy to report, is home again at last.

© Robin Edmundson, 'Winter White', watercolor, 10 x 14 inches. 

Imperfection: Wabi-Sabi

Barn, Greene County, Indiana.  Highway 43.  Since torn down.

Wabi-sabi is the Japanese notion of finding the beauty in the imperfection of how things really are.  I've written about it a few times here on the blog.

It took a while for me to realize that I choose my subjects for painting and photography because of that very notion.   I love the wabi-sabi of aging structures.  The imperfections tell stories and telling [painting] those stories keep our history, communities and culture alive.   I love that.

Things that have been made by hand and which have lived long useful lives are beautiful. 

What are your favorite examples of wabi-sabi?


I'd like to invite you to join our Best Self facebook group where we can talk freely about becoming our best selves - and all the messy work that entails.  In addition, I have another group, The Well Balanced Artist, for creatives of all kinds and in all stages of their creative lives, who are trying to balance their art, business and personal lives.   We can be wabi-sabi together.

Barn

This lovely barrel vault barn is on one of the back roads near Tulip, Indiana.  It's not often that you see one so thin and tall.  I think it's charming.

The Secret Life of an Old Shed

Almost every old property out here has an old shed or barn on it.   They are filled with the detritus of decades of rural frugality. 

We live by these words:  Use it up; wear it out; make it do or do without. 

So many of the folks out here knew poverty.   They saved everything.   Just in case.

You can find just about everything in old barns and sheds.

An old cloth water cooler hanging on the wall where it has probably been hanging for a good 40 years.  'Cools by Evaporation' it says. 

A crate full of old clay pigeons.    Several sections of old ceramic drainage tile.   Old broken sleds.   Old broken furniture.   Old broken wood burning stoves.

Stacks and stacks of lumber.   Old tools.  Ladders.

Old car parts.   Old cars.  Old tractor parts.   Old tractors.   Old trailers.  Old tires.   Old license plates. 

Old bottles.   Old marbles.   

Old cats.   New cats.   [There are at least three in these pics.  Can you find them?]

Ginormous racoons.   Even bigger possums. 

These structures are monuments to the hard work and foresight of my grandfather's generation.    The shed in these pics was built decades ago from the wood salvaged from an old house that had been on the property when the owner moved there.   

This is recycling at its finest. 

Winter Shed

Many of the old barns and sheds in this area are left unpainted.   They weather a deep brooding grey.   It's gorgeous this time of year when the grey goes blue-ish and contrasts with the coppery fallen leaves.   Click to biggify.  It's prettier big.

Here's the same barn a couple of days later, under the snow. 

What a difference a little snow makes.

Red Barn

A lot of the barns out here are black - or grey because they've been left entirely unpainted.  

But some of them are red.

Red, red, red. 

This one is not far from us.   A few horses live there and when I stopped to snap the pic, the horses came over to greet us.    I expect that they're fed that way and were probably disappointed that I didn't have a treat for them. 

They were charming and we had a long conversation about the state of the world and the quality of this year's hay.  

Barn

This barn was torn down a few weeks ago. 

My heart breaks a little when these Gray Ladies pass on.

It was her time.  You could see right through her.  Click the pic to see for yourself.

Here's a pic from a year or so ago across a late season bean field.

She was a beauty.

Stickles Barn

This beautiful barn says Stickles across the front.    It's on the road between Coal City and Clay City, Indiana.  

I love the matching outbuilding behind it.   A well house?   A tool shed?    The smokehouse?   Maybe the farm offices?

This place is well loved.   I'm pretty sure they raise cattle.

Wayne Feed Barn

This barn is on the turn just as you go into Coal City, Indiana.   I have no idea how long it's been there or what is in it now, but it grabs me every time I drive by.

Notice the double hung windows on either side and above the sign.    Were they installed when it was a feed store?

Maybe something really interesting happened there, like Kater Johns got shot by Bob Smith just as he finished delivering a load of hay because Kater had been stepping out with Bob's wife's baby sister. 

Or maybe Millie Scousan found a litter of puppies behind the lilac bush out back and the little black one won the dog show four years running.

Or maybe Mrs. Benedict, the preacher's wife, found out that her son was coming home from the war there.   The telegraph operator ran all the way from the train station to tell her. 

Maybe the Wayne family had to move into the top of the barn during the depression when their house burned down.   They were glad to have somewhere at all to go so they wouldn't be beholden to the neighbors.  They had two more children there and were finally able to move out into a nice house down the way in 1952.  Their youngest son became a doctor and he's the one who saved Kater John's life the day Bob shot him.

What's your story of what happened there?

Barn

I love this barn.   We pass it every time we go into town.

The bottom is cinder block and my gut says that it was a dairy barn, way back when.     It's very very different from the other barns usually found out here.  

If you've got any information about the style, etc, shout it out.

Thanks to Danille, in the facebook comments, I got this link  (http://www.springriverloghomes.net/timberbarns.html).    It's a barrel vault design, used as a dairy barn.    Their design was from the 1950s.  It certainly is distinctive. 

Barn Rubble

Machine Shed

This old shed down the road has housed generations of tractors and farm equipment and barn cats.    And the biggest possum I have ever seen. 

Old Barn

This is the side of our barn.  It's an old tobacco barn in the center, with add-ons on each side.   This side is two stalls that used to hold horses, then chickens and sheep.  Years ago, I delivered lambs in these stalls.   One year, with my new baby in the manger, screaming, and a rooster in the rafters, crowing, and the ewes loudly baa-ing, I pulled a head-first lamb and saved both it and the mama. 

This barn has a lot of history for me.

Down the way is an old barn

It's beautiful, even in its dilapidation.

Autumn Color

WARNING:   This post contains graphic photos of fall.    Beautiful foliage, interesting tree structures, bean fields ready to harvest, the whole autumnal nine yards.     So to speak.  

It's easy to get carried away posting pics of gorgeous fall colors.   And I did.   Get carried away that is. 

That's my excuse for getting carried away posting yet more pics of gorgeous fall colors.  That it's easy.  [In case you forgot what I was talking about]

 Plus, my sister in Philly said, 'Rob, post more pics of gorgeous fall colors!'  As I am ever eager to please her, I complied with her wish.  

 Fall is pretty in morning...

And in the evening....

Farm structures that look pretty grey and boring usually, look fabulous in the fall.

 Even gates are glamorous.

 Train tracks through the woods look great this time of year.

And our lane looks like the entrance to a palace.    Surely this road leads somewhere magical.