Charles Burchfield, Journals, October 12, 1961

Oct. 12, Thurs.

Bertha and I to the Gowanda country –

A beautiful sunny day again, with a light s.w. breeze.

To the E. Becker Road, thinking I might retrieve the “last” painting of the elm scattering its leaves – But when we arrived at the spot, a parked car drove us away; and besides the elm was almost bare.

So we turned westward again, and stopped by another larger elm which was in full orange-yellow glory, and scattering its leaves – Here we decided to eat our lunch (ham sandwiches, coffee, celery, radishes, tomatoes and peach. We saved some coffee and crackers and cheese spread for late afternoon.)

It was only after we were eating lunch that we realized what a beautiful spot we were in – pastures and vast cornfields to the south, with a small winding stream for cattle – [unintelligible word] and the elm and showy but the upper half a large rugged barn, made of new aluminum glistening in the sun like a castle – the farm house out of sight, another round-topped aluminum barn to the left of the road. The farmers were cutting corn on the far side of the rise, and taking it to the barn for processing into ensilage [fodder preserved in a silo] all afternoon. 

Yellow and white butterflies nervously zigzagging over the pasture to the north – a row of willows – By the road on odd new (to us) plant with clusters of pale yellow bell-shaped flowers.

A lovely hour.

After lunch we took our chairs further down the road to “watch” the tree. I kept thinking I might make a painting of such a gorgeous thing, but could not bring myself to start. All at once I saw the real picture – just the sunlight edge of the disintegrating foliage arching over the road, with the  sparkling cornfield to the left, above it the vast sunlit sky.

With Bertha’s help, I soon had the easel set up and was at work. (I used the mount of the new paper – it seemed over-large (34 x 42) but it gave me a lot of freedom to “brandish the brush”!

In the sky I put a pale ghostly cumulous cloud that we had seen on our arrival, with darkish leaves whirling across it – a beautiful ’poetic’ sight –

I finished about five – I called Bertha who had been sitting in the car reading and listening to the concert from Toronto (Haydn’s Trauer Symphony she said) She thought the sketch beautiful – to me it had seemed too a raw unfinished statement.

We had coffee and the cheese and crackers, and shared a Courtland apple – and then drove home.

Evening Louise called, and said Fred had seemed a little brighter – they are feeding and giving him medicine intravenously – there is still suspicion of cancer of the liver – she did not think it advisable for us to come yet -

 Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, October 12, 1961