Andrea Doughtie, Rural Painter

Hello. I thought it would be fun to have a blog about my life in the Vermont woods–painting, cooking, gardening, participating in the life of our small village community, sitting on the porch and just generally enjoying retirement. My husband Ed (writer and musician) and I moved here from Houston in 2001 after coming here in the summers for several years. Our house is deep in the woods, up a long driveway. (The land was cheap–below us is swamp and above us is a very steep hill. We’re on a little shelf in between.) After nearly 40 years of life in a big city with a very hot climate we glory in the change of seasons and yes–the winters too. We feel we lucked into a place with our kind of people–writers, painters and people who share our enthusiasm for a life away from bright lights and heavy traffic. The sense of community here in Strafford is remarkable.

In the summer I go out on my own or with a group of wonderful painters to paint the landscape. My plan is to post photographs of my work as I produce it and before I put it up on the web site. That way I can let viewers know a bit about why I was doing a particular painting. My work is primarily representational although I do experiment from time to time with a more abstract approach. The longer I paint the more I fall in love with forms of objects and relationships of elements in the landscape. Not to get too geisty about it but it seems to me it’s the little parts of everyday life as much as the larger moments that add up to a meaningful whole.