Here are some recent 5×7 inch paintings for you to enjoy. If any catch your eye and you’d like to buy, just let me know! All proceeds help fund new projects.
Love, Aaron
(SOLD) “Bacalar Lake House” – After breaking my fingers in Telchac Puerto, Mexico, my family and I traveled to Bacalar, in southeastern Mexico near the Belize border. We rented a house with very limited electricity. It was here that I learned I would need surgery as soon as possible. This scene is from when I paddled out on a kayak and realized—broken fingers and all—life is beautiful.
“Kite at the Beach” – If money and time allow, Heidi and I take our four sons to the beach each year. One afternoon at Pensacola Beach, I looked out my window and saw this and it made me happy.
“The Boat Dock” – This is looking the other way from “Kim’s Dock,” a different painting based on my wife’s aunt’s lake house in Minnesota. That used to be my dream: to own a lake cabin or live there. Maybe it still is, but at the very least, I can paint it and feel some of that feeling.
“Brislet, MN” – A little scene from on my way to perform a Christmas concert in Thief River Falls, Minnesota. As kids, we would climb the grain elevator, drink Mountain Dew and look at the town below us. We were kings.
(SOLD) “Kim’s Dock” – One summer my wife’s family had a reunion at her aunt Kim’s place on Rush Lake. This is loosely based on their fishing dock. Being on a dock is as close to walking on water as most of us get. Inches away, boat ripples make little splashes against the decking.
“Paddle Boarding” – In Bacalar, Mexico, I looked down the hill through the trees and saw my wife and oldest son having some quality time together. It made me smile because they often can get on each other’s nerves the most. And I love how sometimes in order to find common ground, we need to literally get off it!
“Port Clinton” – I traveled to a small community in Fremont, Ohio to speak with a group of college students about songwriting. Brennan, the director of the program, had grown up in the town and offered to show me around. You know how sometimes you find yourself loving something just because someone else loves it so much? That’s how it was with Fremont. I could feel the town growing on me through Brennan’s eyes. This scene is from our drive.
“Roadside Farm” – I know it’s cliche to paint old barns and silos but maybe I do it because, like all cliches, there’s so much truth in them. Often, while driving, I’ll hold my camera up and point and shoot, not really knowing how much I’ll get in the picture. This is from one of those times. The irony isn’t lost on me: driving on highways quickly past these places that seem to call for a slower, quieter life. I paint it to vicariously live in it, I suppose.
“Strafford Barn” – Along the gravel road to my writing sessions in Vermont, I pointed my camera and shot several pictures. Like this one, they all make me want to trade everything in for a couple of cows and forty acres.
“Scenic Lunch” – In 2016 we traveled around Europe with our (then) two kids. This is a scene from Montreux, Switzerland. I saw a young woman having lunch, presumably on a work break, and it occurred to me that some people actually live in post cards. I think I’m trying to capture some of that awe, tranquility, and “your normal Tuesday” in this painting.
“Yucatán Seaside” – In 2022 we took our first “post Covid” trip to Mexico. This is a scene near our rental that made me feel blessed. Shortly thereafter I would break my fingers, not knowing if I’d ever play guitar the same again. However, I would. (And I suppose in some ways I wouldn’t.)