Charles Burchfield, Journals, March 30, 1964

March 30 – Monday

                Very cold; some sun, and snow flurries –

                All day in the studio on “North wind in March” (with some interruptions – George Gebhart started the business of installing of folding walnut doors  in Bertha’s room and I went over with him a plan for a “curio” cabinet and H.T. Clark brought my income tax returns)

                In spite of this, the work went well on the picture – I established firmly the great black North motif in the sky, with wind clouds, the largest of which is spewing forth snow-flurries. I think I have established with the relation of the wind-blown red maples in bloom, and the sky and inevitableness which every picture must have – that is, the assurance that absolutely no other arrangement could possibly be right.

                Another fortuitous thing – on Saturday when I remounted the parts of the picture , I forgot that I had intended to cut 2 inches of the bottom and add it to the sky – and mounted it as it was, so that only 6” instead of 8” was added above (the plan being to make the hilltops below the middle of the picture – However when it came to painting, when I put in the frozen ponds in the marsh (dark greenish violet) I saw that these dark areas made the sky seem to come down much lower, so that the way I mounted it (albeit by error) was the right way after all.

                This picture gives me great joy. How slowly the “secrets” of my art come to me – it seems to me I have been searching all my life for this motif of Black North combined with the wind-cloud and snow-flurry. When I said this to Bertha, she said “aren’t you thankful that at 71 new secrets are being revealed to you?” and I certainly am.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, March 30, 1964