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by Jane Chandler
Feelin’ Good – Watercolor on paper by Jane Chandler. “Cope grazing along the oak trees in the white limestone rocks which cover the ground in the Bosque County farmlands near Clifton, Texas, where my ancestors settled coming from Norway in the 1800’s.”
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I have a distant admiration for the horse which was nurtured by the western movies and cowboy heroes of the Lone Ranger, Hop along Cassidy days. I spent summers on my uncle’s and grandparent’s farms but in my imaginative youth would ride a sawhorse with a wooden cutout head and a worn, old saddle around the yard while growing up in Waco, Texas. Our backyard had a chicken house which served as a hideout or place to hang my hat and pistols, which were the replicas of the six-shooter with caps that made the bang, smoke and smell of real bullets! I had fun making up stories and reenacting the radio or movie westerns that I had seen. Radio was the inspiration for imaginative play in those days. And that imaginative play inspired my drawings, painting and artistic endeavors.
The horse was my favorite animal to draw, and as a young girl, going to the farm to ride a real horse was always a treat. Although I had an uncle who did woodwork and a great uncle who made wood furniture as hobbies, I had no other family who were professional artists who might be mentors for me to get direction in my art. But since my parents were both teachers in part of their lives, teaching was encouraged in my college years. The Dallas art education program included elementary art, which appealed to me, and I was an art teacher there for ten years.
CopenHagen – Watercolor on Paper, 15 x 22 by Jane Chandler.“Cope with her colt, Hagen who is setting the pace.”
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My parents were both raised in the community of Norse, Texas, in Bosque County, where their grandparents had come as early Norwegian immigrants in search of land that was similar to the land of their home country of Norway. The farm always had the variety of animals and crops that sustained the family through the year. The white rock, or limestone, was the source for the buildings and fence walls of their farms and gives the land a unity and feel of the old country. Being a city girl, my parents wanted to give their children and grandchildren the chance to enjoy the best part of being raised on the farm. So after retirement, my parents sold the house in the city and moved back to the farm in Norse, Texas.
To see more of Jane Chandler’s work visit www.janeechandlerfineart.com.
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