As a painter, I often ask myself where these images I paint come from. With this series, I think the inspiration started when I was just a child. My family moved from the vibrant modernism of 1960s Southern California to the isolated (but grand) Sandhills ranching community of Valentine, Nebraska. As a kid, I thought this was so very wonderful – just like landing in a John Ford western.

In those vast hills, I was exposed to the beauty, emptiness, and colors found living on an endless landscape. I learned the value and cost of hard work. I learned a bad day there would become a wonderful story you would remember your entire life. I sought out old photos from the families of my friends, to help me capture that time, the land, and the even animals that made this life the essence of Americana.

In the Sandhills I came to know the stolen moments of joy found through hard work in a landscape far bigger than yourself, looking up from the fence you are fixing, to gaze across 1,000 acres.

Working on these simple paintings has made me so very aware of the people, just over my shoulder, that laid a foundation for some of the life I live today.

As an artist, I still have so much to learn, but every painting moves me forward in ways I could never predict.       – T.J.