Like writers, painters should paint what they know. Plein air painters should paint the places they live near. In my case, I have a wealth of interesting subjects just outside the door. So much in fact that I will leave out the mounds of work that I do here on my own property for another post. Instead, I’ll show you some of the paintings done just about a block from my neighborhood at Mabry Farm over on Wesley Chapel Rd.
There is a small group of homes and a few farms owned by the
relatives of the Mabry family who have been in these parts for over 100 years and have had the forethought to keep their land as rural as they could considering the economic pressures. As you turn on to Wesley Chapel Rd. off Sandy Plains Rd. the entire area here —was once a large landholding of 220 acres. It’s one of the last farms in this part 
of the county and it’s still used as an apiary and a horse pasture with boarding stables. It’s been subdivided here and there but there is still a large tract of pasture facing Wesley Chapel and another behind that with a pond and some forest. Cobb County recently purchased this property and Friends of Mabry are trying to raise enough funds to provide some access to it off Wesley Chapel. I’m not sold on this idea, but if they minimize the footprint then access will be easier and all will benefit. Right now you cannot get back to the pasture without trespassing on private property.
Over the years I’ve done about a dozen paintings here, mostly of the pasture and the original Mabry farmhouse (built 1910) that sits right off the road. I’ve gotten to know some of the family and thankfully they welcome my interest—what painter wouldn’t be enticed by the idyllic views of what once was commonplace but now is just a romantic reminder of times gone by.