Quiet Mending on the easel after buffing
I am really not too adept at non-objective abstract so I usually start with an image of some sort. Most typically my studio work is abstraction of a different type but usually wildlife, landscape or the human form. "Quiet Mending" is representative of the majority of the work I do. This piece is on its way to its forever home today. Branded and ready to package.
The title comes from a memory that has followed me since childhood, lodged somewhere between the smell of sagebrush and the creak of a saddle. My grandpa, Nate Bassett, lived out in the Sandhills, in a sod house he built with his own hands. Nothing about that life was glamorous. Nothing came easy. And nothing was ever truly finished. There was always something that needed tending.
Close-up detail Quiet Mending encaustic painting
Some mornings I’d ride along with grandpa to check fence lines. Most often we rattled across the hills in his old ’53 Willys Jeep, following the slow rise and fall of the land. Winter seemed to me was the truest measure of a rancher. The air stung your eyes, wire bit your gloves, and the world narrowed to the small, necessary act of keeping things together, one strand at a time.
A few pieces of the branding pieces I include with an original
What struck me, even as a kid in the 60's, was how quiet the work was. No audience. No applause. Just the steady faithfulness of a man repairing what the wind strained, what the cattle leaned on, what time itself tested. Those fences held more than property lines or pasture separation for rotation. They held the fragile edges of a life built on perseverance. That memory shaped the name.
Snap shot of the painting ready to package for shipping or delivery
Quiet Mending honors the kind of grit that doesn’t shout, the kind that shows up every day in bad weather, unseen by most. The kind required to run cattle and, in its own way, to build any business from the ground up. Both depend on someone willing to walk the line, to fix what needs fixing before anyone notices it’s broken, to hold things together so others can thrive.
This piece is a nod to that spirit.
