This work-in-progress is the latest in my series of autogeographical paintings, with a view of about ten miles of Wyoming from a cross country flight a few years back. I've been everywhere, man...and by many means of transport. I never cease to marvel at the expanse of country between the coasts when I fly, watching its unfolding variety and the visible impacts of human activity almost everywhere below. I've painted a few images to capture the density of lives compacted and viewed as landscape before, like the Big Picture, but this larger image from an eastbound flight takes in a far less populated region of the country where the western mountains are giving way to the flatter midwest.
When I fly, I can't help but think about other transits through this territory that I've made on a far grittier scale than being high above it, and a few photos taken in the same area from these trips are shown below. When I lived in Portland in the mid 1970's, I would shake up my routine by hitchinking or hopping freight trains to NYC, where I would go on art adventures and include the purchase of a BMW or Porsche to drive back and sell for a profit in LA or Portland. Sometimes I'd keep a journal of every ride, to accompany the many slides and SX-70's I was accumulating. One trip, I found an army green '63 Ford pickup that had been abandoned in front of my house, so I painted East on one door, and West on the other and made it all the way, collecting signs and other goodies and piling them in the bed. Now I keep a painting journal, and one of the distilled themes I've noted on a "big ideas" list from my entries is the concept I call "My Dirt". Best as I can explain it: that all-encompasing sensation you get from sitting on ground you own, control or inhabit, soaking in the connections to the rest of the universe that begins at its borders, however far-flung or nearby.
The seemingly empty landscape in my painting, with areas in sun and shaded by clouds, high on hills and on lonely roads and watersheds, is somebody's dirt, even if only as the temporary caretakers we all are. The dramas of lives lived, the unfolding of history and the passage of weather, seasons and time are no less remarkable than those in the big cities, where "my dirt" can be just a few square feet on a stoop...
In these unpredicatble and uncertain times many of us miss travel, by whatever means we prefer. I've made two trips from Portland to NYC since the pandemic hit, and travel has become a surreal experience. Let's all hope we can overcome the mess we're in and reclaim our lives and our mobility soon !
Hitchiking from Portland to NYC using a hand-held CB radio (it worked great)
One of my cross country art trips funded by flipping cars (I only had to fix a few on the road)
Riding the last engine on the UPRR to Green River, Wyoming to photograph a strip mine for a painting
My wonderful gallery representation: LewAllen Galleries, Santa Fe, NM
And as always, you can also contact me directly by email: info@sethtane.com and follow my occasional photo posts on: Instagram