Lap Desk Series: Week 6

While the other paintings’ subjects came from a deep moment of inspiration, this week’s painting took a little digging. I knew I wanted to do a sugaring scene, and I knew I wanted other people in there, but I wasn’t sure who and how. I don’t have children and while I could have just put me in the image, I wanted to emphasize how this rural craft can and needs to be carried on by future generations (along with many other rural crafts, but that is a blog post for another time…I think?)

For context:

I got the maple bug (sugar makers call it a disease), about 6 years ago when I planned a maple program at a historic museum where I used to work. I was absolutely captivated by its magic. You take this water-like substance…FROM A TREE!…and then you just boil it until it turns into probably the most delicious thing you’ll ever eat. Not only is it this incredible nutrient resource from nature, but it is embedded within so much folklore, history, stories and culture that it makes maple syrup and maple sugaring more than just a simple agricultural pastime or professional endeavor, but a cultural identity and phenomenon that continues to attract people with its simple process and magical essence.

My sugaring journey started with a manual auger, four galvanized steel buckets, and lasagna trays over an open fire. I had my little goats then and we would walk out to the four trees I tapped and check the sap running together. I have a lot of fond memories with those two critters and my first sugaring season. I made a quart of syrup on an open fire with some friends that year at the farm where I kept the goats. I did research, attended classes and workshops and learned so much about this incredible farming activity and the people who endeavor to make it their life’s calling. The most I ever tapped was 50 taps and I made 10 gallons of syrup on a small, outdoor evaporator. I kept the evaporator at my old neighbors’ house. William and Mary loved to sugar too and they tapped a few trees on their property and slow boiled their sap on the wood stove in their living room. Mary became enthralled with the evaporator (and eventually bought it from me!) and we made syrup together for two years. We both love xc skiing, winter, and maple sugaring as well as many other handcrafts and cooking. She has extended her enthusiasm to a young kiddo in town who started tapping his first maple tree with her a few years ago when he was about 2 or 3 years old. Mary still uses a bit and brace to tap trees. He’s 6 now, and still taps a tree with Mary.

I love this season, but the challenges of having the trees and my farm and my animals all located away from where I live was becoming too much for me as an individual, and so I gave up farming until some future day when I can do it again on my own little parcel of land, on a very small scale, tapping my own couple of trees and keeping my own little herd of critters again.

But back to the art. I think this image is example of my longing for a slice of the agrarian life once again. When I was thinking about who to include, I realized Mary and her little friend would be perfect for the image. Three generations of home sugar makers, three generations of maple magic and enthusiasm embracing the first agricultural harvest of the season. I chose to slow it down by having the sap boil in a large kettle - similar to how maple sugar was made outdoors during the 19th century when they would sugar off and have boiling parties in the sugar woods. Syrup wasn’t the goal back then - it was molded maple sugar - hard enough to grate into your cooking and food.

The process

So at first I actually had a blank sky - no barn. I included the words “Bubble Bubble Bubble” to emphasize my love for a folk song entitled Maple Sweet that I discovered through Vermont Folk Life (thanks to my husband for introducing it to me during our first sugaring season together - maple is how we met!). I try to sing this song with Evan every year during the sugaring season, so I thought it fitting for the piece. But a few days in, the words didn’t feel right and the composition was off. Remember that last post, where I talked about putting in a background and thinking more about narrative and composition vs. just the image or the main focus? I needed to get back to that. Also..remember I said I despise drawing architectural elements - well, I needed to do that too. There needed be color and a compositional element that added a layer to the story at play. So I put in a barn - a quintessential New England red barn. With hay, and a sleeping cat - who happens to be my cat. And even though my cat never leaves the indoors, I’d like to think that his chosen pastime during a 40F maple weather day would be to sleep in the hayloft of a barn, warm amidst the dried grasses. After putting in the barn and the sleeping cat, the vignette felt complete. It needed another layer to the background, not a distraction, but an addition to round out how there is activity all around us, even if we’re occupied doing something else.

Additionally, besides the barn this painting had another challenge in store for me: fire. I am really terrible at getting fire. I think I’ll get better - but I struggle quite a bit with capturing its essence. I always feels cartoonish when I do it, and that’s possible why I try to get along with it quick, fast, and hope that no one notices that I really do not excel at painting fire. Fire is tough! It moves, and the light around it changes consistently, all the time, every second. It’s hard to place color, to mimic that true glow with matte opaque colors. I can see why oil paint, for its glowing translucency, would be the paint of choice for capturing the brilliance of light and fire’s mesmerizing dance. But in folk painting form it feels flat. Or I just need to get better at it. Remember, talent is a small amount of art making. Making art requires hard work and practice. It’s a skill that you keep learning and a muscle you keep exercising.

One more note before I wrap up here: one thing I’m learning with gouache and with these style paintings is the importance of opaque white highlights. The matte quality of gouache, similar to acrylic, requires dashes of intense bright white to help offset layers, mimic light, and create depth. I find myself using it a lot as a way to create definition and arrange layers so that the foreground elements pop more against the background.

If you’d like to a giclee print of “Bubble, Bubble, Bubble” it will be available for a pre-order for 1 week only here. This is a limited run with no near future printings. Pre-orders close March 4th.