In March of last year I traveled to Vermont, along with 40 other painters, in search of snow. It is an annual pilgrimage made by many painters, led by Stapleton Kearns, T.M. Nicholas, and Eric Tobin. It’s arguably the worst time of year to be in Vermont, with freezing temperatures and icy winds, but who ever said painting was easy? Dressed in my ski clothes, snow boots, and as many layers as I could wear, I entered the harsh and beautiful landscape with my easel.
Vermont is famous for maple syrup, and much of the arable land is filled with maple forests. They’re dense woodland composed of tall skinny trees, with some tapped, their blue veins bleeding sap, which eventually goes to a nearby sugar shack to be boiled down to syrup. The air smells sweet, and the plumes of smoke rising high above the shacks have a distinctly pink hue. A sugar shack, in a maple forest blanketed in snow, appears to be something from a fairy tale.
