Mississippi Dusting

Returning to oil painting required a complete redesign of my studio strategy. Wearing a sling meant I could no longer stand behind my palette as I normally would, so with the help of a few patient friends, I shifted everything around and essentially turned my easel into a drive-through window. By moving my palette away from the painting surface, I was able to compensate for my limited range of motion and get back to work.

The painting process itself was equal parts determination, improvisation, and occasional negotiation with my left hand. Brushstrokes often landed in places other than the ones I had intended, leading to a steady cycle of painting, wiping out, repainting, and occasionally questioning my life choices. Yet somewhere in that chaos, an unexpected gift emerged. The loose, spontaneous marks created by necessity began to mirror the very qualities I admire in nature: movement, energy, and a certain untamed unpredictability. What started as a frustrating limitation gradually became a useful artistic tool, reminding me that sometimes the best marks are the ones you never planned to make in the first place.

Since I apparently hadn’t challenged myself enough already by painting left-handed, I chose a subject I rarely have the opportunity to paint in Mississippi: snow. There is a certain freedom that comes from tackling an unfamiliar subject with your non-dominant hand. Expectations are lowered, inhibitions disappear, and every reasonably successful brushstroke feels like a small miracle. To make things even more interesting, I worked with a deliberately limited palette. With fewer colors to choose from, I could focus on the subtle shifts in value and temperature that give snow its character. My goal was to capture that distinctive Mississippi snowfall, the kind that arrives quietly, transforms the landscape overnight, and then begins negotiating its exit the moment the sun appears.

Snow in Mississippi is less a season than a brief guest appearance. By lunchtime, it’s often little more than a memory. I wanted this painting to preserve that fleeting moment when winter still has a foothold, the sky remains soft and gray, and the landscape pauses before surrendering to the inevitable thaw. In a state where snow rarely overstays its welcome, capturing it on canvas seemed like the only way to make it stick around.