Regeneration

“Regeneration” was painted in 2026 from a 2025 sketch and photo completed at Bel Lago Farms North near Suttons Bay, Michigan while with the Old Art Building Plein Air Painters. I had scouted a number of sites—the house and barn at the end of a gravel lane, a ridge line overlooking a panoramic view of the vineyard and teeming already with painters, longhorn cattle lolling beneath shade trees, a gorgeous pond and stone wall, and open plain with vineyards and hills in the distance, all of which will undoubtedly become future paintings—and then climbed a slope as the two-track began to disappear, only to cruise down the slope's other side and look back up to encounter this scene. I quickly made the sketch and snapped the photo, knowing it too would become a painting one day. “Regeneration” became one of the paintings in the OAB’s “Art of the Vineyard: Celebrating the Spirit of the Vine” exhibition in the summer of 2026.