Walton Ford

(bron: Monster Brains)




(bron: arrestedmotion)


"I turned left [on MA 23] and stuck my thumb out; the third car pulled in and I was in a truck with a nice young guy heading into town. We talked about tent caterpillars and all the rich New Yorkers buying up the local real estate for weekenders and holiday homes…

He took me to a cool cafe in the back streets, bought me a coffee and I met another guy, a stocky bald guy in a black T-shirt, keen to talk about his recent 10-day trip along the A.T. in Maine… I talked history (Shays’ Rebellion) and nature with the second one and he soon offered to take me to the Trail… We talked mostly about the Trail, travelling light, animals; only later did I learn that he was an established and well-known artist called Walton Ford who had a studio in town… Well, it turned out to be one of the most inspirational mornings of my life…

I’ve already stocked up on Yukon Jack at the local “package store” (as liquor stores in this part of New England are known), and Great Barrington being a pretty, artsy, alternative, folksy kind of town, my food bags now bulge with quinoa, dried organic bananas, walnuts, humus, and vegan chocolate-chip cookies from the splendid whole-foods store. A welcome change from Snickers bars and Pop Tarts. But I’m short on one crucial type of fuel: methylated spirits, as we Australians call it, or denatured alcohol in American.

“I think I’ve got some in my studio,” Walton says. “Here’s an idea. I got nothing on this morning. Why don’t we stop in and get you some fuel, then I’ll take you on a drive, show you some of the Berkshires? I’ll drop you back at the Trail later.”

My luck, as so often happens on a long walk, has taken an abrupt switchback for the better.

Soon we were in his car, stopping at his amazing, cluttered, chaotic studio to find me some denatured alcohol among the papers, magazines, sketches, paintings, CDs, paints, and general joyous disarray of the place. While there his agent called and I admired his pictures of colourful, riotously extravagant animal portraits — birds, bison, wolves, lions — in a kind of updated classical style from the age of exploration and colonisation, with snatches of contemporary written accounts blended into the background, and little surreal or historical touches: buzzing flies, a burning building in the distance…" (bron: The Goat that Wrote)