Cattle chute
Gathering storm over south Asia
60" x 30" canvas
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Whale's eye not
48" x 40" canvas
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Petersen barn in spring
8" x 10" proof
© 2006 Duncan Dwelle
Thistle glyphs
48" x 44" canvas
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Long knot
36" x 24" canvas
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Broken back
and slumping shouldersShades of powdered cocoa reflect so strongly in the late afternoon sun that this barn evoked in me the scent of fresh baked cake.
I waited nearly two hours for the last direct rays of a bright Autumn day. In the final seconds before gleam climbed off a strip of foreground grass, the near wall's outward thrust fell into dramatic relief.
As is plain from the broken ridge pole and collapsing roof, this nineteenth century barn may not stand another decade. The door has splintered; soil and weeds drifting down the hill have pinned its foot; outward bending thrust adds a tipsy tilt.
Gravity and time will soon reclaim to the land planks and timbers which once grew from it. Long after nothing remains here but a mounded blackberry patch, friends of the Dehlinger Winery on School Hill Road will remember the distinctive colors and broken form of this simple barn.
48" x 36" canvas
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Hen house number one
60" x 26" canvas
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Frost on aging angles
48" x 40" canvas
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Burbank barn
36" x 26" canvas
© 2007 Duncan Dwelle
Glowing with age
20" x 25" matted in walnut frame
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Green grain
on redwood shed20" x 25" matted in walnut frame
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Lichen forest with fly
48" x 40" canvas
© 2007 Duncan Dwelle
Cow barn
36" x 28" canvas
© 2008 Duncan Dwelle
Barn below Mt. Tam
11" x 14" proof
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Petersen barn in summer
Each week of the year, each hour of the day, each minute of fog or storm or sun, transforms, for the attentive viewer, everything the eye receives.
Each transformation brings its trademarks - its ephemeral yet unmistakable indications, in shade and shadow, glisten and glare, of where and when the light is falling, and from whence it has come to rest.
This old barn, clinging to its sagging skeleton, echoes the slope of pastured hilltops holding back a scrim of summer fog blushing with barely hidden blue. The verdant guardian oaks have reached their peak summer foliage. Tall meadows of newly browned grass are bent under full heads of seed.
No shadows; all is dry but not yet withered. This is mid-day coastal summer!
36" x 24" canvas
© 2006 Duncan Dwelle
Hinge on faded red
48" x 40" canvas
© 2009 Duncan Dwelle
Graton barn
Nature knows neither bounds nor limits to color, texture, and form.
Long before the hand of man traced his mind's eye across a blackened cave wall, every hue and shade imaginable had been splashed boldly on nature's canvas for a hundred million years or more.
Now man's work, so recently carved from trunk and cliff, returns gently from whence it came - beam and plank to humus soil, hinge and nail to flaked mineral rust.
48" x 40" canvas
© 2006 Duncan Dwelle
These are my images on display October 4 through 28, 2010 in the Mill Valley City Hall. The sequence is clockwise from the entry at the top of the stairs.