"Railways To My Heart", original art. Story Of Reverence. The Train Saga Continues

As I've told you before, trains are my romantic love. I remember how I felt as a boy, watching the long convoy of cargo trains pass through my town and making a plan of jumping on one of them, letting it bring me to far away lands, feeling the wind and sunshine on my face, as the steel wheels carried on its rhythmic song through endless patches of dry grass growing by the railways. I had no doubt that I will live adventures that few live, with no other purpose then exploring the unknown territories of this Earth which I always felt connected to in an intimate way.

"Sunset over Glen Drive", oil on 48x38 inches canvas. Available for sale. This is the south view from behind my art studio.

Not even my dark troubled years could kill the reverence I had for the Earth. When I was a boy, I spent whole weekends out in the meadows, swamps and forests, accompanied only by my dog. I felt at home there, and I never felt alone. I talked to the trees and I could feel their pulse when I hugged them. My most favorite animals were birds and I knew the names of all of them. I would climb the mossy branches and peek inside the nests, marveling at the beauty of small freckled eggs, excited about the unhatched life growing inside.
As a teenager, when I went full on into my trouble mode, caught in the midst of violence and aggression, I would still run under the rain on the muddy trails leading me into the lush greenness. I would sit under a tree and smell the humid air, and watch the snails come out to celebrate in their glorious slowness, devoid of fear, sparkling in the light filtered by leaves bowing graciously under the weight of raindrops.

Maybe it was nature that kept me alive in the most intense times of darkness, when I almost lost my hope of ever coming back home. In times, when I was subject to the human cruelty in the name of ignorance and brutal force without a trace of higher purpose. In times when my pain was pleasure to those, who despised me for no other reason then the fact that I was different.

When I moved to Vancouver and got my first art studio, I was over the moon with the discovery that right behind the hundred years old wooden building (1000 Parker Street Studios) were old railways, opening up to majestic view of snow covered mountains in the north and to a maze of rails under the Terminal Avenue bridge in the south, where many cargo trains rested patiently, waiting for their day of travel.

"Railways on Glen Drive", oil on 54x38 inches canvas, available for sale. This is the view north from behind my studio. The two snowy peaks in the background are Lions, keeping guard over Vancouver. Probably one of my best industrial landscapes I ever painted.

When I got my second studio, I felt really lucky. It was in the same building, but this time under the roof, which I could access directly through an old skyline. I would be sitting there, on the old black tar roof, watching the sun set over the panorama of high-rise buildings of downtown Vancouver, and majestic chestnut trees of Strathcona neighborhood. I could see the railways too, sprawled at my feet, like silver lines of a giant cosmic web, glowing in the fading daylight.

That is where you can find me most of summer evenings, sometimes with a glass of wine, sometimes with nothing but my happiness and sorrow, looking the Sun in the eye in silent communion.
Please don't tell anyone. It is my secret hiding place.

It is where I stop the inner talk, so that I can hear the whisper of my heart.

Much Love,
Jan

P.S. You can read about my childhood adventures here:
https://steemit.com/art/@jankasparec/cargo-trains-original-art-story-of-childhood-adventures

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