Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, June 20, 1941

[Burchfield encircled this entry with red pencil to emphasize its importance.]

All day on the Great Elm— Working on the left hand side. I have carried this now to the point where it seems impossible to conceive of the original picture as being a complete motive – it needs the setting of the surrounding areas so much.

I wish it were possible to do significant work without getting so “wrought-up” — In doing, a subject like this in which memory and emotion play equal parts, nothing seems to go right, and I must start again and again; I finally reach a point when in a rage I destroy all I have done so far, — and at that moment, unknown to myself, I have solved it.

By the end of the day I was in no mental state to judge the value of what I had done; so I asked Bertha to come and “look over my shoulder” — Her honest enthusiasm restored me to sanity.

Charles E. Burchfield, June 20, 1941