Living in a Landscape: Shona MacDonald

If I were to be magically painted into any canvas in the museum, and I could bring five items of my choice, I would choose Shona MacDonald’s Sky On Ground #1.

For me, this canvas brings back memories of waking up early on a Saturday morning in November for a cross-country meet. The air was dry and cold, but the sun was bright, drying up the muddy ground, leaving uneven damp patches. This worst-case scenario New England weather is depicted immaculately through the light reflecting on the puddles, and the earthy muck encroaching against the trees. I used to emerge at the foot of the woods armed with: a thermos of cocoa, a rain slicker, rubber boots, a pair of sunglasses and a lawn chair. The rain gear kept me dry and insulated before the race and the sunglasses shielded me from the mid-fall sunrise. I sat, and the chair sunk into the muck, as I warmed my hands on the hot cocoa.

MacDonald brought back these vivid memories for me with her evocative plain ground.

The view in her painting is the same view as a high school runner, looking down at the ground, trudging through the path, remembering every puddle, every branch so that we would not get lost. Had she chosen to paint the trees, runners, vendors etc. the painting would become impersonal and far less nostalgic.

That mundane scene is both intimate and powerful in the way that it transports you to that early morning meet without a bus-full of teenagers and Dunkin’ Donuts. I see the reflection of the branch in the water and I imagine a puddle of my own sweat at the end of the course. I imagine peeling off the soaking under-armor and throwing it to the ground as teammates encircle me with their arms and touch Gatorade to my lips. I am absolutely moved by the esoteric nature of what she chose to depict in these few puddles on the ground.

In that water I see victory. I see loss. I see fatigue and I see great hope, that hope that only exists on those autumn mornings, when you have many miles to go and winter is ahead, that hope that is the New England Spirit, the spirit that only Shona Macdonald could capture in Sky on the Ground #1.