Distant Landscape

By the time I started high school I had criss-crossed the United States at least seven times by car, traveling with my family. I think those long fleeting landscapes are as much a part of my childhood as any of the homes I lived in or schools I attended.  

 

Much of what I love about being in a place is the view of the land. I remember fields of sunflowers flashing past my train window in the late-summer afternoon in the Italian countryside. I remember crossing a sloping meadow, wet with early morning dew and dotted with distant sheep as I walked through Welsh farmland. 

One of my vivid childhood memories is of flat, far-reaching, green fields in South Florida, bright against the stormy sky, a fleeting landscape that I imagined painting some day.

In recent months, I have been one of many anticipating the adoption of three young children from Ethiopia, two little boys and one sweet girl who are joining their new families here in the U.S.  

I've been thinking about this big transition for the children and this new love of a distant land for my friends who are adopting. This painting depicts an area near the Bane mountains in Ethiopia and attempts to capture a bit of the sense of place these friends are embracing.

Welcome home Tsion, Elias and Yihun!