Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 15, 1939

To Emporium County- I had in mind this time doing a sketch of a freight train laboring thru [sic] the hills on which latter cloud shadows would be casting fantastic shapes.

It was a terrifically hot day, which coupled with the fort that I had not slept well the night before, made the trip down rather tiresome. I had to stop at Olean, to buy a shirt (for I had forgotten to pack me and could not present myself at a hotel in the old shirt I was wearing).-

I stopped at the high embankment (18 miles before camp.) where I ate my lunch on the previous trip) for today’s meal. After – wards I made a study of a house of part of the hill to the west, but I did not accomplish much.

I found I was not going to get the object of the trip so easily. There were few clouds to cast shadows to begin with, and I could not seem to find the right spot where the hills were at the right angle to the sunlight, and where a train would easily be visible. In a word – it was the memory of a great number of impressions I was hopelessly trying to find in a particular spot. I started making studies, however, and soon grew interested in that, and determined at least to gather as much material as possible in the two bridges picture. I spent the afternoon thus, growing fascinated with the effect of the boiling sunlight on the hills.

At one spot I found a low swampy tract by the railroad, where were growing thoroughwort and scotch thistles, which had attracted many butterflies of various sorts. It seemed to be one of those places which have what the ancients called “genius loci” – at late afternoon I was to come back here and make a sketch. Then the sun had declined enough to throw the eastern side of the hills into shadows, catching only the tops of the trees with light.

Tired as I was, I had to force myself to start painting, but once started I grew very enthusiastic and without pause, completed the painting in a couple of hours. When I finished I was exhausted and so thirsty I thought I could not wait till I got back to the spring.

Shortly after starting back to Emp., I picked up a couple of women who were going to Emp. to “bid someone goodbye.” They were both smoking cigarettes. The older one, who sat in front with me, chattered incessantly about things that did not interest me. I wanted to watch the landscape, and so only gave her monosyllabic replies, and not always the right ones perhaps, as evidenced by her puzzled silence following. At the spring, she got out too for a drink, and seeing some touch-me-not on the bank, told me that it was a sure cure for poison-ivy. Seldom have I ever enjoyed water as much as then.

After I had gotten a room, I went to get my supper, intending to make a few notes afterwards. I sat facing the street, and then two buildings opposite, I could see a patch of the great hill that lies along the entire length of the town to the south, and I could observe the evening shadows slowly deepen on it, as it changed from smoky blue-green, to deep blue-black, and I realized sketching was out. Never-the-less, I impatiently hurried them my meal, hoping I would be able to see something. It was useless however, but I walked around a bit listening to the various sounds – women scolding, a crooning to the accompaniment of their children’s plaintive voices, various railroad sounds, or the medley of sounds arising from the main street. The town seemed oppressed and shut in by the hills, which stood up starkly against the twilight glow in the northwest. The cricket chorus seemed to dominate all sounds.

Back in the room, I eagerly got out my afternoon’s painting, and felt that it had good points, I discovered an underwing moth on a wall near the ceiling, and set about capturing it, which I did after climbing the table, chair, and bed several times and throwing things. It served to loosen up some of the terrific nervous tension I was under. But not enough, for I lay tensely in bed for sometime [sic] before going to sleep at last.

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, August 15, 1939