It’s winter. Plein air painter Jon Browning stands in Goodale Park and, amid the traffic and city noise, sets up his easel.
It’s clearly mitten weather, yet Browning’s hands are bare. In one, he grabs four brushes of differing sizes; in the other, he holds a palette knife to mix paints of pale green, red and yellow to match the park’s winter colors.
It’s not cold enough for gloves, he says. Those days – when he will stand in the snow and damp, capturing nature’s ever-changing light show – are still to come.
“Below 10,” he says – meaning degrees – is when the gloves come out. “We’re a hardy lot.”
He smiles and starts to work. The trees of Goodale Park begin to appear on his canvas; the subtle colors he finds remind the viewer there’s a lot of life to paint despite the cold.
We’ve all seen plein air painters, whose easels sprout on the Statehouse lawn in the warmer months. They make it look fun and restive. To partake in the scenery and dabble in the arts seems like a relaxing afternoon.
“It’s relaxing in a way that taking a beating is relaxing,” Browning says, partly in jest. “It’s hard work, and if you’re not focused, then you’re playing and not playing in a constructive way.”
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The work he speaks of has nothing to do with the weather and everything to do with observing light, its subtle changes and moods, and chasing it on the canvas. It requires intense focus.
“On a sunny day, I have maybe two hours to complete a painting,” Browning says.
Painting is one of Browning’s two careers. By day, he’s a practicing criminal defense lawyer in Columbus.
He could pick only good weather days to paint, but he is dedicated to his craft. Like most plein air painters in Ohio, that means cold days, numb fingers and, at the end of the day, a warm satisfaction with the work.
Unlike most of his peers, Browning came to painting later in life. His fascination with painting started at a museum.
“One day, I thought, ‘You know, I’m going to give it a go,’ and I did and I liked it,” he says. “I’ve enjoyed it immensely. It ebbs and flows, you know. I try to do something art-related every day.”
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A brush with cancer a few years ago solidified his focus. It wasn’t a great epiphany, he says, but his desire to practice law 14 hours a day was gone at that point. So Browning took classes at the Cultural Arts Center and began his practice, making friends along the way.
He’s a member of the Ohio Plein Air Society and paints every week with a group of plein air painters. He says that his community of painters was key in making him a better artist.
Browning’s paintings give the viewer a sense of anticipation. A radiant stand of trees greeting the morning sunlight, the intersection of roads covered in snow and lined with bent grasses, and the fork of an apple tree that begs to be climbed – all are images that suggest something will happen, or has happened, just off screen.
“Painting is, to me, a huge part of mining memories,” he says, referring to the landscapes of his childhood in Ohio.
For Browning, the pastures of France would be interesting, but what really drives him is the personal connection to familiar ground. He says it’s a practice “of staying in touch with lives past, with memories past, with family and friends and places. I love painting the places I grew up.”
And with his paintings, he brings us along for the ride; the scenery feels familiar, tender, welcome. He is mining not only his own memories, but ours, too, our collective memories of our home state – the greens of summer and the mitten weather of winter.
Cindy Gaillard is an Emmy award-winning producer with WOSU Public Media. Learn more about the weekly arts and culture magazine show Broad & High at www.wosu.org/broadandhigh.
