Backstory: “Reaching”

I grew up on a farm that had several distinctive outbuildings. The one in this image is what we called the Chicken House. It was a very long building running east and west. The western end is depicted here:

Inside the building were sections, mostly used for storage. Running along the northern side was a shelf that in the center section held lumber odds and ends. Two-thirds of the way east was the actual chicken coop, with the shelf serving as a roost and a hen-sized door to an outside fenced yard on the southern side.

The room immediately beyond the wall you see in the image was used for storage primarily.

One of my earliest memories of that room – I must have been about four – was when my older sister, L., dared me to drink some nasty green liquid we found in a glass jug in that room. I must have done it because the next memory I have is of my mother forcing Ipecac down me and holding me over a sink while loudly scolding L. I'm pretty sure I was terrified.

I don’t know if the green liquid was actually poison but my mother wasn’t taking chances.

That was only the first but not the last time L. would lead me (a willing participant, mind you) into questionable territory... but that’s another story (or ten).

Notice how hard it is for me to write in “blog-speak”?

Back to the artwork: One day when I was in my late twenties, I noticed how the clouds were nicely reflected in the glass and, on impulse, asked my son, who was around four, to reach for the window. He willingly complied and I snapped the photo.

I love the pop of blue color against the plainness of the aging building and the stretch of my son’s arm as he reaches upwards. The action speaks towards a yearning in all of us to reach beyond our circumstances to something more hopeful.

In 2021 we sold the farm but before we did, many of us were able to return for one last goodbye to the place where we were raised.

My son – now an adult with his own son – was able to make the trip and he took an imitation photo with his son reaching for the same window.

Life imitating art.

The original mosaic is not for sale as it is one of my favorites but prints are available on Pictorem in various formats and sizes.