Brad Aldridge

Walking down a forgotten country lane, littered with stones and broken limbs, carpeted with the new growth of spring, I am exhilarated by warm days and the end of a long winter. I'm here under the pretense of work. I am looking for subjects to paint.

I've made landscape pictures most of my life, and have always been drawn to small, private, untamed places like this. In these sorts of places I felt both trepidation and elation. My trepidation came because of the inherent danger of mortality that nature teaches all too well; the remains of some animal or the ruins of an old building. I was also keenly aware of the vulnerability of being alone. My elation came from observing the exquisite beauty and subtle intricacy of nature; the hope of a new season, and the liberating joy of being alone.

Years later, as I emerged from my university art education, I was well practiced in the skill of looking for “deeper" meanings. I searched for metaphors in the landscape in an attempt to explain the powerful hold these sorts of places had over me. Overgrown stream, winding road or river, divergent paths, the hovering cloud, a solitary tree, and a glowing horizon all have double meanings for me. I've used these symbols to tell the viewer how I feel about the world, and perhaps in true didactic fashion, how I thought they should view the world.

However, I recently returned from one of my walks down a small pasture stream near my home, pleased and satisfied with my musings on these weighty intellectual matters. As I drove home, I saw a young boy with a bucket; riding his bike towards the stream I'd just left, presumably to catch crawdads. I was surprised by the realization that perhaps thisisthe deeper meaning of my work. I'm simply looking for an excuse to play in puddles and walk in the woods.

And as I walk down this country lane on one of the first sunny days of spring, metaphors swirl in the back of my mind. I suppose, however, if I had to define a central message that I derived from the world at a very early age, and would wish to pass on to the viewers of my paintings, that message would not be metaphorical, but literal. The message is this: In spite of a long hard winter, spring comes again.