WHILE DRIVING-TOP DOWN IN THE ABARTH-THIS PAST SATURDAY-I drove around a bend over a knoll and was confronted with a Rockwell Kent painting, Adirondack scene wise, apparition.
Rockwell Kent was a prominent 20th century painter, print maker, illustrator who spent most of his adult life on his farm (with studio), Asgaard*, 3 miles up the road from my home in Au Sable Forks (pop.541), NY in the Adirondack Mountains / Forest Preserve. FYI, that's his farm with barn in the above hay bale painting.
*named after a location associated with gods. It is depicted in a multitude of Old Norse sagas and mythological texts.
When I moved to the Adirondacks, 21 years ago, Kent had died 30 years prior. His farm was still in operation (new owners) and is where we still get most of our beef, poultry, pork and aclaimed-around-the-world goat cheese. We are friends with the owners of the farm so on occasion I am able to go up to the farm and hang out in Kent's empty stand-alone studio.
In any event, every once in a while I do come across a Kent-like looking landscape. I never have pictured one. However, the mountain landscape pictured here was so much like that found in many a Kent Adirondack painting that, I swear, the Abarth came to stop on its own and seemed to indicate that it was not going anywhere until I made a picture.
While thinking about making this entry, I recalled that I had made a picture, in the exact same location (and I do mean exact!) where Rockwell Kent had made a painting-in Co Donegal, Ireland near the location of the so-called "Ghost" fishing town, aka: Port. At the time I made the picture, I was not aware of Kent's very well known painting, "Annie McGinley" (presented in this entry). It was not until I returned from Ireland that I discovered the painting while researching Kent's time painting in Ireland.
Upon viewing the painting (online), I will admit to having a freaky spine-tingling moment as I realized, not only had I trod in Kent's near-exact footprints, but I had also made a picture with a similar motif ... a lone woman in a dramatic location. In my case, my wife. In Kent's case, most likely his Irish Lassie inamorata inasmuch as he was a well known seeker of many women's "affection".
PS I was very lucky to come across a very nice signed, first edition copy of Kent's 1940 book, This Is My Own. An interesting illustrated telling of his life and times in Au Sable Forks.
