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Text and Paintings by Ted Rose
I'm just old enough to remember steam locomotives in regular use, to have witnessed the dramatic physical and social changes implicit in the diesel revolution, and to have seen the final fling of private-carrier passenger operations. The American railroad landscape presented a heady, multi-colored view to this dazed, wanna-be artist. But railroad for tunes and places were in serious decline when I was young; their overall image was one of decay, and I knew even then that I had no interest in depicting the quaintness of old things representing such despair. Melancholy is not for the young. Neither is history. I didn't paint much after 1963.
Fortunately for most of us, American railroads survived. By the time President Carter signed the Staggers Rail Act in 1980, the constant downsizing, abandonments, and waves of industry-wide mergers had changed the whole railroad landscape. Then, for the first time in my lifetime, railroad fortunes began to improve.
In 1983, after 20 years of storing images and ideas, I began to concentrate on painting again. This was not entirely because of the evolving status of American railroads, but I was very glad to know that my visual future was going to include more than suburban cul-de-sacs, Interstate directional signs, and Wal-Mart parking lots. I began painting old stuff, and still enjoy depicting the things and places of memory as I attempt to portray what part of my own past felt like. And I have a good time painting the survivors, equipment, and people from another time: porters, handlers, hostlers, shop men, Frisco's 1522 and crew, Steve Lee, or the narrow gauge.
So what's new? Most of railroading. There are the regionals, short lines, and spin-offs, of course-many of them nice reminders of railroading past-but big-time, mainline, contemporary railroading is a sight to behold.
Some observers have complained that railroading is just not the same, and find the big roads no more interesting, aesthetically, than conveyor belts. To each his or her own. I find the eagles, alligators, and other new reporting marks and symbols every bit as enter tailling as a Wabash flag or Maine Central pine tree.
I like the reality of tripletrack out of North Platte; the well-maintained plant on the old Reading; or the several places around the country-like Belen, New Mexico-where I can see nearly a hundred trains in 24 hours. The "good old days" just weren't the same.
As a painter I once relied on an elegant, dye-based color called Alizarin Crimson. It handled beautifully in washes, mixed well, and approximated the intense violet-red color of an American LaFrance fire truck. But the American Society of Testing and Materials (ASTM), under the auspices of the Artists Equity Association, found that Alizarin Crimson fades, is not permanent, and should not be used as a watercolor pigment. Suitable alternatives are now available. They aren't the same. For most painting purposes, they're better.
In today's railroad world, David P. Morgan might have lamented the loss of the ampersand, but he would have rejoiced in ever-increasing gross-ton-mile and market share stats and reveled in the phenomenal improvement in labor productivity. From trackside, he would have described this resurgence for us in dramatic prose.
Contemporary writers and photographers have ably chronicled and recorded the look and feel of present-day railroading on these and other pages. But where are the art works, where are the paint ings of the rail road environment during these last years of the 20th century?
Like our late 19th century brethren, American realist painters seem to have forsaken the present for a loving look at the past. As a result, we've created a market niche for ourselves as visual his torians and preservationalists. This is commendble but limiting, I think. Railroading is now in comparatively good shape, and shows a visual presence as commanding as any within my memory. So, without intending to bite the historical hand that feeds me, here are several paintings of the railroad present, and what there is for me to be excited about and commit to paper. I may lament the loss of Alizarin Crimson, but I happily indulge in the bright pennanence of its several replacements.
I see things as paintings: the interplay of light and color, shapes, pattems, and the structure or composition of the whole. These are similar to the concems of a good photographet; but my medium is watercolor-and the painting process is for me as important as the subject matter. I don't try to replicate the look of a photograph, nor do I feel a great need to use the medium as a document of past or present. What concerns me in one painting or series may be done with or expanded upon in the next. Reflections on watet; the structure of grain elevators, the roundness of tank cars, the wake of lake ships, the gestures of sectionmen, the starkness of mine tailings-all are quite intriguing.
For me, two things in painting are constant: My reliance on the visually tangible world, whether in the expression and structure of a person's face or the front end of a 4-8-4, and my use of watercolor as medium of preference. The subjects of past or present are variable, determined simply by my concerns in painting, but I'm glad of a vigorous railroad present that allows me the opportunity for choice.
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Watercolor 12" x 16"
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Watercolor 9" x 12"
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Watercolor 12" x 16"
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Watercolor 10" x 14"
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Watercolor 10" x 14"
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Watercolor 14" x 20"
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Watercolor 12" x 16"
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Watercolor 12" x 16"
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Watercolor 18" x 18"