Be Careful Out There!

Perspectives from The Artist's Road

Those of us who love to be painting outside in the kinds of weather that drive most sensible mortals indoors often encounter other hazards waiting to upset our apple carts. I like to paint near train tracks. They often have interesting if not superb views of the landscape. In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, the railroads were given carte blanche to appropriate some of the choicest real estate along America’s great rivers. This makes sense if one is trying to make a roadbed, but it effectively cut off the public from the water.

This was certainly the case in the Hudson Valley, where the twin tracks of the old New York Central line made accessing the Hudson River hazardous and illegal, and made boat launching impossible. The few over or underpasses provided were merely token accesses, and often in the wrong locations for fishing or recreation.

Still, the views are there, and it is the artist’s duty to go after them if at all possible. So it was in that motivated and defi…