Charles E. Burchfield (1893-1967)

Got to work on the picture based on the "flying squirrels" incident at Annie's (our step-grandmother.)

[In the summer of 1904, my sister Louise & I spent two weeks at her farm (she was then married to Dick Elton) near Bayard, Ohio. In the attic of their little farmhouse lived 14 flying squirrels. Each evening we would sit on the back steps and count them as they came out. It was their custom to glide first to the base of a nearby pine-tree, ascend to the top of the tree, then glide away to a woods to the north.]

Originally I had planned to paint the actual incident of the squirrel coming forth at dusk, but as the work progressed I abandoned that, as well as trying to reproduce the actual place, and concentrated on simply a mood of August twilight in the backwoods. At first the work went painfully slow, and once I thought I ought to give it up - but then I started on some trees quivering against the last afterglow in the sky, and it began to "feel" right. 

Although I did not finish, I established the main mood. 

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, Vol. 52, pg. 159, September 14, 1951

Worked on the "At Annie's" picture, practically finishing it. In it I think I have reached a new landmark of the blend of realism with abstract conventionalization. 

Charles E. Burchfield, Journals, Vol. 52, pg. 160, September 15, 1951