Copyright © 2021 by Wendy Waszut-Barrett
At the end of 1923, Thomas G. Moses wrote, “This year has been a very disastrous one, in respect to my picture painting. I have not been able to do anything but a few pencil sketches, enroute to the south and east. I will never be able to have the time I had in New York, where I could run up to the Catskills in a few hours at very little expense. My dream of desert sketching will never come true, unless I sell out. My forest pictures will always be with me, as it is now second nature for me to do them. I should have made a stronger effort in Oregon and Washington to get some of the big tree sketches and a few more of Mt. Rainier, that very elusive peak that was under a cloud cap, most of the time, as there is only a few months during July, August and September that it is possible to get it at all. It is almost necessary for one to live there and catch it on the fly.”
You can feel his regret, the realization that he had gambled and lost. When Moses went back to Sosman & Landis in 1904 he gave up the one thing he valued most – time; time to paint pictures. He left a successful business in New York to supervise all aspects of production at Sosman & Landis. He was initially compensated for the loss, receiving shares of stock, the title of vice-president and recognition, but he lost time…and time is the one thing that you can’t get back. Moses must have told himself along the way that all of his sacrifices would eventually pay off. When he got older, there would be enough time and enough money to go paint for himself. But year after year, the sketching trips became less frequent, until there were none.
This is one of the reasons that I started painting for myself this year. I didn’t want to waste another decade.
To be continued…
