VIEW FROM MY CABIN was inspired by the five years I lived in an old log cabin on six acres in the foothills of the Smoky Mountains outside of Knoxville, TN. The cabin itself is part of work. It was built by the great grandfather and grandfather and father of the owner who rented it to me. She was a darling woman named Beverly Lee and had retired to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi. Her son met with me in the cabin and rented it me on the spot without a background check, security deposit or first and last month deposit. When I am about this he said that he could tell I was an person with integrity. Over five years, Beverly never raised the rent. If something needed repair or replacement. like the refrigerator, she told me to just take care of it and take it off next month's rent. She said she didnt want the receipts because she trusted me. The cabin was obviously filled with magic and power. It's 2700 square feet on two levels did not have a single surface that was plumb or level. The ancient chinking between the hand hewn logs was made of rags soaked in plaster. There were many gaps between the logs and the chinking. So much so that I could actually peer out in some places and see the trees on the mountain above which the cabin was perched on giant wooden beams. When I moved there were only three personal items in the house, a crucifix over over the fireplace, a baby's red satin jumper with a cotton string tied silken hood and a black, chiffon woman's teddy. The view from the porch and great room on the second level was perhaps the most beautiful I had ever seen. This is saying a lot because I have traveled, worked and lived extensively in 15 + countries as well in 5 US cities. In every season the view was completely different. When I first moved into the cabin in November, 2003, Fall was fast becoming Winter. The miles of forest and valley below the cabin that ended at the base of the Smoky Mountains was a tangle of dense tree limbs and branches stretching infinitely. Gazing at it you felt like you see through it but in fact you could not. I felt safer than I had ever been. This, despite the fact that the house itself was porous. And on cold days, I could feel the wind blowing through the walls of the cabin. Sometimes I found baby snakes in the kitchen that had slithered through the floor. I painted the view from the wrap-around screened porch that jutted out over the forest during that arctic first winter, bundled in layers of clothes and a green down jacket. The door to the porch had no lock and the screens were frayed and hanging in places with more than a foot gap in places. I was entranced by the changing vista all through December and January. Wanting to savor the ineluctable pleasure of this first painting in the cabin, I only worked on it for a few minutes each week. Actually it was so cold I could not have worked on it for more than ten minutes at a time anyway. Though the landscape might seem to a casual viewer to be desolate and woebegone, for me the opposite is true. The brittle bows and hidden gullies and hibernating warrens of country critters were all as blessed here as me, myself and I.

Artwork Size & Ink Base:

35x42 There are approximately 14 distinct layers of paint and materièle in this piece. It is composed of gesso, acrylic paint, acrylic marker, colored pencils, charcoal pencil, thick matte gel media, archival quality glue and matte sealant as well as found objects from the six acres around the cabin. This includes brass buttons, small wooden carved nubs, petrified twigs, a rusted hair clip, plastic beads, worn glass fragments and more. I am in a muddle as to what the term 'ink base,' refers to and would like to apologize to the team at Plogix and its custolers for my lack of acumen and knowledge. As soon as I figure it out I promise to add that to all my artwork descriptions. DAS

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Daniel Aaron Schwartz

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