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This painting has sold, but you may still purchase a fine art print.
This is Hertford Bridge, more commonly known as the The Bridge o Sighs, after the The Bridge of Sighs in Venice. It connects the two quads of Hertford College, in Oxford, England. It doesn’t really resemble Venice’s Bridge of Sighs, but it is beautiful, and quintessentially Oxford. We visited in the late afternoon when street was beautifully shadowed.
I’ve always heard that art is therapeutic. And perhaps it is for some people, but not for me. When I’m depressed, I get in fights with paintings and I lose all sense of self judgment. Everything I paint, I deem of no value. Sometimes I’m right. Sometimes I’m not.
I painted these three almost identical views of the old Salem railway bridge about two years ago during a fit of depression. They are the survivors of perhaps six different attempts. I doubt the ones I threw away were all that much different. In the end I put the project aside in frustration and painted other easier things.
About a week ago, when getting ready for the Silverton Fine Arts Festival (last weekend) and the Artisan Village at the Oregon State Fair (next weekend), I discovered that I had sold so much this last year, that I was in some danger of not having enough art to fill the space. So I looked back through some of my older work for things to frame and found these old bridge paintings. Looking at them now, I can’t figure out why I didn’t like them. They do exactly what I wanted them to do. They capture the foggy morning atmosphere, and they give a sense of how much the trestle draw bridge feels like an open cathedral.
Because version number two was painted on clayboard, I didn’t even have to frame it to hang it. The painting got a surprising amount of attention considering that I hung it on the back side of my booth. Several people asked if there were prints available. So I promised that by this evening I would get the painting on line. And here, they are.