March Thaw

2014
acrylic on masonite

Almost every March here in southwestern Ontario, we get a warm rain from the south, rapidly melting the snow and ice that rises as fog over the frozen fields. The effect is quite dramatic at night, and conveys a deep sense of mystery to me.

The barn holds it’s own mysteries as well, and the darkened window with red highlights hints at perhaps an unhappy history locked inside, as rain washes the red paint down the barn wall.

During the month of March, the moist air and fluctuating temperatures would wreak havoc in the barn, and calves sometimes contracted pneumonia. In spite of our best efforts to medicate and nurse the calves back to health, we would sometimes lose an animal.  When this happened, the calf was brought outside for pick up by a dead stock removal company (this protocol now has even more relevance today in the grip of our current pandemic, and in a sense, the painting was prescient given the current state of affairs).  As the calf lay on the snow, the heat draining from it’s body would melt a silhouette in the snow. A snow angel marking a life expired, and the effect it had on me as a young dairy farmer.  I think, because I had to learn to farm, as opposed to being born into one, I saw and experienced these tragedies on a more profound level. It was certainly something I never got used to, and I had to wait almost 20 years for the memory to diminish enough to paint about it. Maybe one day the light will come on in the barn, and the secrets will be expunged.

  I finished this painting around Easter, and my father in law saw it just after it was done. He was an incredible dairy farmer, and a wonderful mentor to me as I learned the vocation. After taking in the painting for a few minutes, without prompting, he said, “I guess in a way this is a resurrection piece”.  I never forgot those words, or the lives of the animals lost prematurely on the farm.