During the pandemic I return over and over to the idea that our surroundings are what grounds us. This land, these trees showing the cycle of seasons, these farms sustaining families, this is what provides the soil into which we stretch our roots. I find great comfort in painting the scenes around my rural home, and that comfort endured when the pandemic shook all my assumptions.

The declining late summer sun on the gold of my neighbor's cornfield reminds me that it's a long wait for harvest, but it will come all the same. The remnant of an ancient fence has been there for no one knows how long, perhaps left by a previous farmer. There is a permanence to the way we relate to the land around us that gives me hope.