Portfolio > Oil Paintings/Charcoal Drawings_Old Time Songs & Stories

I titled this painting after a favorite tune, called "Cold Frosty Morning." Like "Shady Grove," it's in a key that is neither major or minor but called "modal." However, like a minor key, it's melancholy and contemplative sounding. "Cold Frosty Morning in Winter," along with "Shady Grove in Summer," "Reddleman and Green Jeans in Fall," and "Pumpkin Pie in Spring," are a sub-set of my Old Time series that depicts the four seasons. I was thinking of Breughel's four seasons paintings.

This scene is on my porch and harkens back to the pre-vaccine days of the Pandemic. My fiddle pal Molly Stouten and I had to play outside and socially distance, but in spite of the freezing cold we were determined to play our music and maintain the spirit of Old Time music, which is: communal, community and friends-and- family oriented, intimate, welcoming, and accessible to all.

I thought the clearest way to show that it's winter was to include a Christmas tree since it seldom snows these days in North Carolina. However, the Christmas tree is not an artificial construct or surrealistic: each December I put up a fake Christmas tree outdoors on my porch, so it's actual and realistic.

The scene is ambiguous on purpose: the viewer is supposed to be looking at the side of the house, and the sunrise or sunset in the windows is a reflection. My cat Daphnis looks out, giving away that the window landscape is a reflection. However at first glance, it may be a bit confusing, as if Molly and I are inside and the viewer is look out into the landscape, not at a landscape reflection.

I frame the painting with evergreen flora associated with wintertime and the Christmas season: holly and ivy. I love the song "The Holly and the Ivy" and couldn't resist making this reference! Incidentally, I play tune on the banjo in a "modal" key and tuning!

I included at the painting's top edge my porch light, a Moravian Star. I depict also painted it in "Pumpkin Pie in Spring." The light fixture in both these paintings suggests that they are thematically related.