Mountain Range: Smoky

Smoky mountains.  The mist and the fog heavy on the ridges.  Feel it, quiet and thick.  Breathe in the silence.  Shrouded in gray.

Shrouded.

Shroud.

A shadow of death is here, but calm and beautiful, in the distance.  No fear.

The trees look on without a word.

This is a sober twilight view of the mountains painted by Betty Jane Posey.  She had her own art gallery in Gatlinburg, Tennessee, in the Smoky Mountains.  She painted landscapes, barns and flowers in the 1970s to at least the 1990s.   It’s easy to see them on the web.  Of all the pictures I saw by Posey, this one is the one I like.

I have not found biographical information about her, but Posey was (is?) part of the Great Smoky Arts and Crafts Community.  In 1997, she and Kathy Shields Guttman created a book filled with anecdotes and recipes from the people around them, the crafting community.  It’s called, Whop Biscuits and Fried Apple Pie.

Untitled

Betty Jane Posey

Gatlinburg, Tennessee

Paint on stretched canvas

12” x 24”

Mountain Range: Orange Ya Glad?

This is a color-rich scene with mountains in the background.  This picture by Lee makes me think of scenic painting for the stage.  An actor could enter stage left, or maybe an opera star could sing in front of the flat bush props.

Each element is thoughtfully painted with vibrant hues.  It’s almost like paper doll pieces cut out and arranged individually.  Here’s a tree.  Here’s a bush.  Here’s a rock.  They overlap each other.

The lake gleams, but is not reflecting the mountain or plants.  It’s hardly reflecting the sky. Is it dawn or dusk?  The orange light of the sky doesn’t affect what we see.

All the parts form something that grabs my attention.  I hope Lee continues to paint and study color, because there is definitely something interesting about the fearless combinations here.  Look at the foreground ground:  a lot of paints used in an appealing but primitive way.  Beautiful dirt.

This thrift-store picture was painted by Lee on canvas over masonite.