On Memorial Day, Toad Hollow burned bright with red poppies. Frogs paused, rabbits listened, and swallows stitched the sky. In Wesleyville, animals gathered quietly, honoring the hush beneath color. Wind moved like a prayer, and the field remembered, blooming courage, rest, and gentle magic for all who passed watchful hearts.
Wesleyville Collection
I’ve always loved poppies. They carry me straight back to childhood—back to my mother’s gardens, where I would snap the dried seed heads and scatter them wherever I thought flowers should grow. I was convinced they would take hold everywhere if I just spread them far enough. I wish I had those exact red poppies now. I’ve never quite found ones like she used to grow, and maybe that’s part of the magic.
This painting is a nod to that memory. The field is alive with poppies—bold, unruly, unapologetically red—set beneath a wide, open sky. It’s the kind of sky that feels endless when you’re young, the kind that makes a simple walk feel like a journey.
You’ll notice a single tree standing alone in the field. That’s no accident. When I was growing up, there was a large pine in the middle of my parents’ field. It’s gone now, but when my cousins and I were kids, it felt like the center of the world. We’d haul our toys all the way out there, dragging them through grass that seemed to stretch on forever. The pine felt miles away from the house—far enough to be an adventure, far enough to feel like freedom.
That sense of distance, of scale, of a place that felt larger than life, is something I return to again and again in my landscapes. The lone tree becomes a marker of memory. The poppies become small acts of rebellion and joy. Together, they form a quiet tribute—to childhood, to gardens tended by loving hands, and to places that live on even after they’ve changed.
This painting isn’t about recreating a field exactly as it was. It’s about how it felt—and how some things, like poppies and summer skies, never really leave us.
Art Prints and Products available
Leave a Reply