L. Kent Wolgamott: Texas painter’s ‘Last Year on the Farm’ a stunning series

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In the middle of the 19th century, the camera replaced the paintbrush as the professional tool of choice for documentation of events and people. By the middle of the 20th century, that tool was in nearly every household, resulting in a deluge of snapshots that capture birthdays, graduations and all manner of daily life.

With her stunning series “Last Year on the Farm,” Texas painter V … Vaughan turns back the clock, using her brushes and paint to document the final 365 days on her family farm by making one plein air painting each day.

More than 230 of her mostly small, daily paintings from that last year are on view through March 14 at the Great Plains Art Museum, 1155 Q St.

Hung salon style in two of the museum’s ground-floor spaces, the exhibition is overwhelming — it would take multiple viewings to take a serious look at every painting.

But that isn’t necessarily the point.

Vaughan’s images of cattle, a tractor in a hayfield chased by birds looking for lunch and the family dog looking expectantly at the painter give some sense of life on the farm from the latter part of 2006 to the latter part of 2007.

Her landscapes, done at all times of the day, convey the place itself and the changes that occur there. There are cold moonscapes, roiling purplish clouds that are bringing rain, depictions of cattle grazing in front of low-slung buildings at sunrise and the dimming light of sunset.

The paintings are hung in groups that are largely chronological. Because the farm is in central Texas, the changes of season are not as dramatic as such an effort would have been here. There is, for example, no snow to turn everything white in winter and no sudden “greening” in the spring.

But the seasons are nonetheless notable, providing a view of the passage of a specific time in a specific place, the essence of documentation. And because Vaughan’s hand can be seen in every image, allowing her love for the place to come through, “Last Year on the Farm” is far more evocative than any set of daily photographs could ever be.

It also helps that Vaughan is an impressive painter, obviously highly skilled at seeing something of interest (like birds flying around a cow) and getting it down on the small canvases, most of which appear to be in the 5x7-inch range. Some of the paintings are finely detailed, others much looser, a quality that is illustrated by four paintings from April and May that hang in a row that move from fairly accurate to highly gestural.

The emotional punch of “Last Year on the Farm” comes in one of the few pieces with titles beyond the date: “Why We’re Moving,” in which the city, edges of Austin or one of its interlocked suburbs, can be seen encroaching on the Gault family farm.

As is the case around any metropolitan area, including Lincoln, selling the farm to make way for “progress” becomes inevitable at a certain point. For Vaughan and her family, that point came last year. That gives the series a sadness, the mark of an era in a family’s life passing away.

But the paintings will stand as depictions of what happened on the land before it was covered with houses and strip malls — as seen by an artist.

“I always see the beauty in how the farmland under the big skies changed constantly,” Vaughan writes in her artist’s statement. “And this beauty, when translated from my eye to canvas, can give the impression of romance. A frozen moment in time by an oil painting doesn’t properly convey the deep commitment to the land that the farmer and rancher has. It’s only a snapshot and only gives an incomplete view of a special way of life.”

To present a fuller view, Vaughan has made notes on the backs of many of the canvases. I didn’t take any pictures off the wall to check — that’s generally not a great move at museums. But it would be fascinating to see the paintings with the notation to get a more complete understanding of Vaughan’s documentation of the farm.

A final point of commendation:

“Last Year on the Farm” is hung without labels of any kind. There are guides that can be carried that give the date of each painting and the title, if one exists. With no printed material to intrude on the imagery and no huge text aimed at forcing interpretation, the exhibition functions naturally. All you need to know to “get it” is that it is a year on a Texas farm. Everything else can be sussed out from there, a refreshing way to see artwork.

Impressively, there’s more to the show than just the daily series. On five days, one for each season and one at the end of her time on the farm, Vaughan made one painting an hour, creating a series of 24 paintings she calls, for example, “Fall Day: Last Year on the Farm.” They’re found on a temporary wall on the museum’s second floor.

The effort involved in undertaking a painting an hour is impressive in and of itself. But Vaughan’s imagery is just as striking, and her work as well done in the hour-by-hour pieces as in the once-a-day paintings.

I’ve always found plein air painting to be captivating. Making an entire piece outside during a single session is a challenge that requires a set of skills and a kind of vision that is different than those utilized in the studio. And the immediacy of the paintings can’t be denied.

This being the digital age, there’s an online component to “Last Year on the Farm” as well. All 365 paintings can be seen at www.v-vaughan.com, and she has a daily painting blog, vvaughan.blogspot.com.

I’d suggest seeing the real thing before looking at the digital images. Actual paintings are always more impressive than any reproduction, and Vaughan’s work in “Last Year on the Farm” deserves to be seen with all its details and feeling. This is a show that shouldn’t be missed.

Reach L. Kent Wolgamott at 473-7244 or kwolgamott@journalstar.com.