"Public Sale" by Andrew Wyeth, tempera, 1943. He painted this from memory after a day out at a livestock auction with his wife and their friend Bert Guest.
This painting looks like a memory of the place where I grew up, a world which no longer exists.
You spend so much time as a young person dreaming of leaving a place you are from and then you finally do. And then, when you realize you haven't been back for a thousand years and you miss the place you once called home, you turn around to find that old familiar place has quietly, completely disappeared. Gradually, it dawns on you that you have no home. You are reminded of it everywhere you look. You have a place where you dwell, you have work, you have four walls and a cel phone and bills and deadlines and a sink full of dirty dishes. Then you realize you need to find a home, a place where everything feels right and is in its place. Because no one else will do it if you don't.
