Bridge of Fire & Light: A Painting of The Old North Bridge, Concord MA

Hey, everybody. It's Dustin Neece here again.

Here we are in Concord at the Old North Bridge. This is where I've been working on my latest painting, and I've been working on it for over a year now. So I've gotten to know this place pretty well.

It's a pretty magical spot. It's a pretty amazing place. It has a really powerful feeling and an incredible energy to it. It's no wonder really, this is where Daniel Chester French's statue of the Minuteman is, this is where the shot heard around the world took place. It's where the American Revolution began.

This place really resonates with me because it was where a group of simple people decided that their level of discontent and unhappiness with their oppressed state had reached a point where they were willing to give their lives to have the opportunity to make their own world, to make a new world, to make a better one, one that was more in line with their beliefs and their preferences and their morals, their values.

And you might not think that's got much to do with painting, but for me it does. That is, in a lot of ways what I feel like I'm doing with my work.

When I see the news, in the off chance that I see the news, or look on the internet, we're constantly bombarded with crap. Some of the darkest, most depressing, fear inducing stuff. And I've found that as a sensitive guy, I have to not necessarily insulate myself from it, but if I'm going to acknowledge that that exists and that's happening in the world, I need to feel like I can do something about it. And my way of doing something about it is to create my own world.

And that's what I'm doing with my paintings.

I'm not just making paintings of what I think is beautiful or what I think is nice. I'm I'm trying to build my own world.

My paintings are windows. They're doorways into that world. And in my world, the world that I'm holding, the world that I want, there's a whole lot more harmony. There's a lot more peace. People treat each other differently. They interact differently. It's based on my preferences and what fulfills me and what I enjoy and what I believe in.

That's something that I feel like all the greatest artists in history have done, and and that's what really draws us to their work.

Technical mastery of painting is not what makes a masterpiece.

I really believe that what makes a masterpiece is the artist's relationship with his canvas.

When an artist just feels like they're making a nice picture or they're pushing paint around to try and represent what they're seeing, that's nice. And they can really make something beautiful. But when an artist's relationship with his canvas goes to the next level where they begin to feel like their paintings are a place that they live just as much as they do in this world, then it takes on a whole new quality. Because they're not just pictures, they're places.

I live a good portion of my life in my work, in this world that I'm building, and that's what I feel like all of the greatest artists in history have done. For example, one of my favorite artists, a guy I studied with in Norway, Odd Nerdrum, I learned that from him. I watched him work. He would spend half of his days working on his paintings. In his studio, you didn't feel like you were just in a studio in Norway out in the countryside. You felt like you were in the world of his paintings when you were in his studio.

It was the feeling, it was the energy, and the vision, it was all encompassing: a multi-sensory experience.

His painting spoke not just about what that place looked like, but what people's relationships were like, how they treated each other, what the light was like, what their values were.

That was incredibly inspiring to me, and and it made me see all my other favorite artists doing the same thing. When you look at a Klimt, for instance, his paintings are abstractions, and you could say that he was just inspired by colors and forms and combining the abstract and and the real, but it was more than that. He lived in his paintings, he created another dimension, another world, another space.

And and again, that's what I feel like I'm I'm trying to do, and and that's what makes me so passionate about doing everything I can to share my work with as many people as possible.

Because it's not just about putting beautiful pictures on a wall, it's about putting a window, putting a doorway, an inspiring vision in someone's home, where they can be reminded on a daily basis of not just the actual, but the possible.

And more than any painting that I've made before, that's what this painting is about for me, this painting that I've done, of the Old North Bridge. And I'd like to share it with you today, so let's take a walk and go check out where I've been working.

Alright. So here we are. Here it is, my painting of the Old North Bridge. And like I said, this painting's been over a year in the making. It's the longest I've ever spent on a painting.

It's so interesting how all these paintings happen. They all really have a life of their own, but I've never had more challenges and more setbacks in a painting. And, you know, it's funny. It's like we're tested at every turn. To feel like I've brought one of my best works into being, but that it was also filled with the most challenges, to me, is really interesting. I think that's meaningful, that there's some significance there, for me anyway.

And so I just want to tell you a little bit about what happened because it's actually pretty interesting.

I started this painting last year in September. I got about two weeks into the painting, and I had stretched this big canvas, bigger than this one actually. Because I was so excited about it: when I find that new painting, that new image, that new vision, I just have so much excitement, sometimes I want to make it twice as big as I'll actually even have time for. That's just my nature. But, I'm out here working on it, and I walked away from the canvas for, like, ten seconds. I turned around, and the whole thing's on the ground, everything falls over, and I spilled linseed oil on the backside of the canvas.

I don't know if you know anything about conservation and painting, but if you get linseed oil on the backside of a canvas, it's done. It's not gonna last. So I had to cut the canvas and make the painting a little bit smaller. I mean, it's still big as it is, but I had to make it significantly smaller than I had it and restart.

And let me tell you something, you don't restart a painting in the fall because autumn, especially in New England, is one of the shortest seasons. I have maybe two weeks of peak and I typically work on my paintings for at least two months.

So that was not great, and it was like, panic mode basically. I ran home. I had to cut the canvas, re-stretch it, and restart the whole darn thing, and I think I worked for maybe two weeks before I came here on October first, and all the parking lots were gated off. Parks closed.

Remember that government shutdown we had in October last year? Well, this is a national park, and it was closed. But did that stop me? No.

I jumped the fence. I came in anyway. I set up and I worked for about a week until one of the park rangers had to say, "I'm sorry, but it's my job to tell you that the park is closed and and you have to leave."

It was a little disappointing and I said, you know what?

"I don't care. Regardless of the challenges, I'm going to finish this painting."

Because I really felt, even then, that it had so much potential.

So I put it away for a year and then I came back. Then, I spent another two months bringing it into being and coming out here, and we've had some pretty interesting weather, and it's been wild. And working outside like this, I know a lot of artists and even people that I meet out here when I'm working who just think it's crazy what I do. They say:

"Why aren't you in a studio? Why aren't you just taking a picture and and working on it at home?"

And it really all comes back to what I've been talking about. If you're going to build a world, if you're going to make a doorway or a window into a world of your own creation, you have to make it as alive and real as possible.

And the only way that I've found, that I'm able to do that so far, is to put every brush stroke on this canvas while I'm standing in this spot.

Because when I'm standing here, it makes me feel differently. I'm in a different state, and my painting, the world, the window that I'm making is a reflection of that state.

So, anyway, that's my story. That's my story of the old North Bridge, that's my story of how paintings are not just paintings, and artists are not just painters. They are creators of worlds for us to explore and to expand our minds and our sense of what's possible.

So thanks for watching. And, if you're on my mailing list, you know that I'm going to send out a free high resolution download of this painting, and a few days later, I'll be letting you know how you can acquire prints of this painting if you're interested.

But, either way, I'd love for you to have this painting on your wall, in your home inspiring you on a daily basis. So please, when I send it to you, download it, keep it on your computer, print it out, frame it, do whatever you like, buy a print, bring it into your life, and you'll be helping me do my job and fulfilling what gives me purpose and meaning in the world. So thank you so much. I'll talk to you soon.

Stay inspired. Stay expansive. Keep creating.