I found this iconic monument to southern agriculture on a trip to my childhood home in North Florida. I was attending a solo exhibition of my watercolors and drawings. While scenes like this were plentiful when I was growing up here, very few remain today.

On this hot, rainy summer day, I got off the main road in search of an interesting subject to paint. The asphalt country road was wet with the bright afternoon sun reflecting off its slick surface. The rain water began to evaporate off every surface creating puffs of steam that seemed to consume the road surface. Remembering how this was an almost daily occurrence when I was a kid, I laughed quietly at the memory. Passing a grove of tall pines along the road, I approached a clearing. In front of me was a spectacular century-old tobacco barn that looked very much like the ones in many of my childhood memories. It reminded me of the tobacco farm where my family lived and worked when I was young. As I turned onto the red clay dirt road in front of the barn, memories came pouring into my head as thick as the steam rising from the puddles left by the afternoon rains. The structure itself was rapidly disintegrating. The clapboards were tearing away - a desperate effort to escape the natural process of decomposition. A strong shaft of light burst through a huge hole in the roof kissing the clapboards as it moved down, highlighting the underbrush.

I could hardly contain my excitement at being confronted with such a scene. I knew I had to capture this dramatic light show in watercolor.