Fresh Breeze On A Lifted
Tack
A fresh breeze of a lifted tack
It’s not the first time I have compared sailing and particularly racing to painting, and particularly racing the weather leg where you cannot point directly at your goal but only at the closest angle to it which might be called the lifted tack. You tack to the lift or you tack to the fresh breeze, and perhaps with luck you get both at once. But you might tack to the headed tack in order to get to the fresh breeze where, once you are in iit you might tack again to stay in the puff.
So my pictures may be seen as directions taken to get closer to a mark. The perfect weather leg looks and feels clean, with a certain elegance of form. That leg generally does not exist and is replaced with some trial and error, some on the fly boat handling, and a kind of in-the-moment zen, particularly on a lake out here in the region where geography shapes the wind and there are short legs. Not on the big city ocean where the wind is more constant and less shifty and a degree or two matters a lot more.
My pictures take multiple directions and I continually circle back and repeat myself and try for ever stronger realization of form. They are not realistic, although that might happen. Clumsiness is OK and par for the course, and so elegance might be a reach and maybe undesirable.
Out here where I live the landscape and particularly the woodland exerts a pull -- it is always present and assertive. I include my house, myself, my wife, and various family members as we inhabit this wooded hillside with its particular objects and light.
Killebrew is a Nashville native and received a BFA in painting and printmaking from Middle Tennessee State University. His work is in public and private collections throughout the Southeastern United States. He is also an accomplished guitarist, sailor, builder and conversationalist.
Last Light oil on panel, 24.75 x 19
Artwork List
The Circular Saw oil on canvas, 39.5x 46.75 2024
Paving lithograph, 13x20 2024
The Two of Them oil on canvas, 54x36 2024
Mimi and the Dancers oil on panel, 17 x 22.5
Studio with Three Mirrors oil on canvas, 39.75x56 2024
At The Metal Museum oil on panel, 17.5 x 9.75, 2024
Peggy Snow and a Change in the Weather oil on panel, 25x37
Lightning Bugs and Mist oil on canvas, 13x18 2024
Paving lithograph, 13x20 2024
The Lightning Bugs oil on panel, 11x 28