Art Exhibit Portrays Farm Heritage

Currently on display at ArtSpace in Herndon is the exhibit "Farms, Barns, Grain Elevators to the Sky," which opened Monday, Sept. 6.

The exhibit features 34 watercolors of grain elevators and other farm buildings from a number of regions in the United States that were created by watercolorist Douglas Simms Stenhouse of Torrance, California. 

According to Les Zidel, the art gallery wanted to celebrate the heritage of Herndon, which used to be a dairy farming community. The gallery spent six months looking for local artists to display work that would focus on farms. However, Zidel said they weren't having much luck.

"There is a certain chemistry that happens when you talk to artists. You feel like they're really entrusted in showing a collection of their work and I didn't get those feelings from any of the artists that I spoke too. And that's unusual," Zidel said. "I had found one or two artists that had a few works but not enough to do the whole gallery. And I wanted to have a group show. That was the original idea. But it just wasn't quite there."

After about four months of searching Zidel said he was about to abandon the idea completely when Jack and Laurie Corkey, previous owners of the Great Harvest Bread Company, visited the gallery.

With them was Stenhouse, who grew up in Washington, D.C.

"He handed me his business card and on the back of it was a grain elevator. I mean, what are the odds of that? I've never gotten a card with a grain elevator on it before," Zidel said. "So, I said to him, 'Do you have any more of these?' and he reached into his pocket and pulled out ten more. And I said, "No. I didn't mean more business cards. Do you have more grain elevators?' And he said, 'Oh yeah. I have a whole studio full.'"

Floored by his response Zidel continued to inform Stenhouse about the exhibit he was hoping to open at the gallery.

"I said to him, 'I'm looking for farms, barns and rural stuff. Grain elevators would not be exactly what I was looking for but it's very close," Zidel said. "So I started to talk about my idea and within an hour we had made up a plan."

Originally from Washington, D.C. Stenhouse practiced architecture for a number of years before moving to southern California. There, he worked with an aerospace company before taking over the management of an energy conservation consulting firm. 

After retiring, Stenhouse began his career of watercolor painting which he has enjoyed since he was a little boy.

"I've been painting since I was a teenager but professionally for the past nine years," Stenhouse said, who was introduced to watercolors very early in life by his father who used to take him out painting as a child.

Stenhouse said he prefers to use watercolors because they are loose and free allowing him to paint landscapes, seascapes, house and church portraits. Stenhouse said he enjoys working outdoors where he is best able to capture colors, values and textures in his compositions. 

Though much of his subject material is from southern California, Stenhouse also paints extensively in the Chesapeake Bay area, Delaware River Valley, New England and the Pacific Northwest.

"My ideas come from walking about and looking at things," Stenhouse said. "All my paintings are executed outdoors in places I go."

The idea to paint grain elevators came along during a visit to see his son several years ago in eastern Washington State.

Stenhouse said he was driving on a country road when he came upon an elevator.
"You can't miss these tall, angular, metal-clad structures. They're set smack up against the roadway," Stenhouse said. "If you've never seen one before, they're bound to greet you with somewhat of a surprise."

Intrigued, Stenhouse created his first painting of a grain elevator and liked what he had accomplished. Since then, Stenhouse has become increasingly interested in their shapes and forms including their chutes, windows, hardware and landscape settings.

Over the years, Stenhouse has added to his collection of watercolor grain elevators resulting in a reputation for doing this type of work, he said. Over the past eight years his paintings have received over 63 awards and appeared in over 242 exhibits, 63 of them solo events.

Stenhouse's exhibit at ArtSpace will be on display through Sept. 26.

"It is a great joy to have my work displayed here in the Washington DC area where I grew up and painted when I was much younger," Stenhouse said, who exhibits his work all over the United States in various watercolor artist exhibits and galleries. "I expect to return in the near future and help out ArtSpace any way I can."

Zidel said this is not the first time that ArtSpace has shown work done by someone from outside the area, however it is the furthest it has ever gone.

"To have a solo exhibit by an artist from California is a real achievement," Zidel said, who said it's better to show artwork from not just the local community but other areas as well. "If you were only going to show local artists then the artists that we serve even don't get a chance to see what other people have done," Zidel said. "We're committed to local artists but in addition to local art we have to reach out and bring other people into the process.

"This was such a unique opportunity to have watercolors of this caliber from way out to be able to assemble his collection," Zidel said. "He didn't get picked because he was from California but because he happened to have a collection that we were looking for. I like the subject matter because we're so used to urban life that its really nice to remember what farms are like. And I particularly like water colors. We don't get enough of them. And the exhibit has been very well received."

To learn more about Douglas Stenhouse and his work visit www.douglasstenhouse.biz.

For hours and information on the exhibit "Farms, Barns, Grain Elevators to the Sky" call ArtSpace at 703-956-6590.