I got a letter yesterday - “Congratulations!  Your art has been accepted in Art of the State:  Pennsylvania 2010 at The State Museum June 27 – September 12.  There were only 150 works chosen from 2,076 entries.”

This watercolor painting is a scene from Columbia, PA, coming down from Chickies Rock.

I painted this because of a remark made by a teacher at a workshop I took.  John Salminen, a very well known artist, had looked at one of my other paintings (a schoolbus) and remarked that I’d made a mistake, I should have made the road equal on both sides of the white line.   He explained that the uneven road in my photo was probably caused by camera distortion.  I snorted.

 “John,” I asked, “have you every been to Pennsylvania?”  It wouldn’t matter where it was, he explained, roads were the same all over the country.  I don’t think he’s been to Pennsylvania - our roads are a bit different.    I’m just going to paint what I see.  If my roads seem uneven, it’s not camera distortion, it’s life as usual, in Pennsylvania.