This year it feels like I have spent most of my time driving between New York City and Pittsburgh.
Elder caregiving responsibilities settled squarely and solely on my shoulders unexpectedly in mid-March, necessitating these 600 mile + round trips.
Altoona, PA. Branches that grow vertically like this are called “water sprouts”; they’re a sign of distress.
”Other countries have social safety nets, the United States has women.” I think about this quote often on these trips, as the mileage adds up to a couple of Continental crossings.
The first few trips were so fueled adrenaline and panic that that I had little time to notice anything extraneous. But as the crisis phase resolved into tedious difficulty, I began to think about how to make this long drive less taxing.
There is just so much Pennsylvania, each and every time!
One plus is that the landscape changes quite a lot along the way. The state is geologically so varied, formed by the distinct influences of the rivers Ohio and Susquehanna. Further East geological forces give way to the sociological influence I think of as New Jersey.
After a few drives of just contemplating this landscape while listening to audiobooks and podcasts, I thought, now wait a minute. I’m an artist and here is a big new-to-me subject.
So I decided to plot sketching stops a long the way.
Stopping every couple of hours to walk around and draw a bit helps so much, with the physical and mental fatigue. The trip takes longer but at least I’m not arriving already depleted.
On my last trip, I stopped in Scranton and checked out the Iron Furnaces. I’ve mentally bookmarked this place as an excellent teaching venue for extreme perspective. I have a few more sketches in the purse notebook from this stop that still need developing, it was such a cool place to draw. (In case it’s not obvious, I did not do naturalistic color in this work.)
I also stopped in Altoona. I’d never been before, so I just drove around and sketched what caught my eye.
I also stopped in Bloomsbury, but I haven’t moved those sketches out of the purse notebook phase yet. The weather wasn’t great, so I hung out in a coffee house. (Fog & Flame, recommended!) I like doing coffee house drawings, but at this point I don’t consider them place-specific.
I did plan drawing stops on the way back, but that didn’t work out as well. I wasn’t able to focus on drawing at all; I was just so flat exhausted. When I stopped I just stretched my legs, replenished my caffeine blood levels, and did nothing more than dumbly glance at my sketchbook in my purse as I climbed back into the car. Nothing was more compelling than getting home.
So next time I’ll hit the places I skipped— lookin’ at you Allentown, Harrisburg, Johnstown! I’ll share as I go along, and as I develop more work from these sketches.