Barnstorming
Sunday, June 24, 2012 at 8:55AM Growing up in the decaying farm country in the hills just east of the Finger Lakes region of New York State, I developed an affinity for old barns and silos. The perennially well kept barns of the more prosperous dairy farmers didn't much interest me. It was the crumbling buildings with their sagging roofs, weather ravaged siding with paint worn to just a hint of russet on silver grey boards, vines crawling up terracotta silos with rusted tin roofs - they were my first and favorite architectural subjects. I could sit seemingly for hours with a .00 Rapidograph or steel crowquill pen and ink, painstakingly trying to record every battered plank, the holes where boards were missing or hung askew. I rode my three speed bike all over the countryside to draw them - I noted their locations on the late bus home from school activities and went back with my canvas bag and sketchbook slung across my back.
Since I got interested in riding a road racing bicycle, I've rarely taken a sketchbook with me. A backpack is cumbersome and annoying, and I have been reluctant to stop, even as the barns I've ridden past on these Lancaster county backroads have beckoned to me. But today, I discovered that my summer wool jersey pockets will stretch enough to accomodate a small sketchbook and a tin of a dozen colored pencils, so I jammed them in and pedalled off into the cool morning, wondering if I'd really stop. I didn't have to wonder for long.
The long shadows cast by the early morning sun at this time of year, the soft but deep colors that they both obscure and reveal, set off by a pale but not yet hot blue sky, transform the landscape into a stage of magical objects, quiet sentinels brimming with secrets. Faint mist hovers just over the green fields down to the edge of the dark trees, telling me that a few steps would leave me soaked in dew up to my knees. So this morning delight, a barn I've passed hundreds of times along Donegal Creek just outside of town, a reminder of the boy in me who is ever mesmerized by the remnants of small family farms.
barn by Donegal Creek, 5 1/4 x 8 1/4, Derwent Inktense pencils
Reader Comments (3)
Scott, this is a beautifully evocative post. It's a great study, too.
Your post got me thinking that I could design a bag for the bike that would hold a small selection of important items for you to carry.
When I was a child we had a retired shipwright in our community who built barns for the local farmers. He always told us children that when he retired from shipbuilding, he put an anchor on his shoulder and began walking inland until someone asked what it was. Upper East Tennessee was where he was when the question came, and there he "planted the anchor" and settled down. I've since heard it from other retired sailors, so I guess the story is one of those urban legends. Anyway, back to the point: when he built a barn he cut all the lumber before starting construction. I watched him build at least three barns and never once did he err in his calculations. Would to God we still had that kind of craftsmanship today. Now, all the barns I see are those metal monstrosities, and most farmers (the few remaining) don't even use barns.
I've often been tempted to put together a coffee-table picture book on the "Barns of Upper East Tennessee," and maybe I will before they're all gone.