Title: | The Hay Whisperers |
Inventory#: | NEILLH100300 |
Size: | 24" x 36" |
Frame Size: | 31" x 43" |
Medium: | Oil on Panel |
Price: | $16,800 |
Another October
another warm day
but not just another barn.
Many many years ago
I lived in the abandoned general store in Muddy Creek Forks.
Across from my easel in the attic
were two very old children’s dress mannequins.
I painted them in their postured attitude
and titled it, “Even the dressforms aren’t speaking”.
even the dress forms arent speaking
It reminds me of these two old souls.
Having come to rest and ruminate
on opposite sides of the barn
their afternoon of gentle roaming deceptively still.
When I searched back through the hundreds of reference photos taken of this barn
those two creatures were never in the same place twice.
The working elements inside this wooden structure were meticulously ordered.
Every single tool and tackle stored with precision.
The hay bales were aligned with the rafters
and even the sunlight played by the caretaker’s rules.
I wanted to convey that context
but when framed within the solid post and beam timbers
it made for a rigid composition.
Until I looked closer
and saw what elegant havoc
the weather was playing on the rafters
the finely honed scarrings of the broad-axed posts
the randomness of those snaggle-toothed carvings
that were left at the feeding troughs
and, in the distance,
the tender gesture
of the leaning water buckets.
Oh the beauty
of a patina of chaos.
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Born in Honolulu, Hawaii, in 1958, Heather Neill moved frequently as a child, from California to the East Coast and back again. She majored in art at Connecticut College before landing first in Boston, MA, where she worked as a picture framer, and later remote Muddy Creek Forks, Pennsylvania. It was there she developed traditional woodworking skills and trained as a chair maker, using hand tools to fashion Shaker style ladder-back chairs.
During a lifetime of exploring art, Heather’s only formal training came during her college years. With her easel set up in each of the 26 places she’s lived, Heather continued to paint while working various odd jobs, including farm hand, bookbinder, vest maker, and stripper at a three woman printing company.
Heather’s work, rich in texture and detail, features equal parts still life, interiors and landscapes. Preferring to work from life, she collects items everywhere from antique shops and yard sales...to the woods behind her studio and brings them home to paint. From tea cups to doctor’s bags to firefighting helmets, the common threads are the stories that the objects, rooms or spaces in the paintings have to tell.
Painting full time since 2001, Heather now divides her time between Pennsylvania and Martha’s Vineyard, with her wife Pat, a hospice nurse, from whom she has learned that “life is short and far too precious to be doing something less than meaningful work.”
Check Out Heather's You Tube Channel for Painter's Notes and Artist's musings.
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