Across the Valley, You Beckon (Nicasio Church in July)

2025, oil on linen, 10 x 8 x 1.5 in, walnut floater frame

You see the white church in Nicasio set against the bright clarity of a July sky, rising quietly from the warm hills, its steeple catching the light like a signal across distance. Most of the painting is given over to sky, so the space feels wide open—like a long summer breath. The church sits there as a small but luminous presence: an anchor, a landmark, a point of orientation held gently inside all that blue.

Vivid oranges and pinks vibrate through the hills, not as literal color but as the felt heat of a summer day when time stretches and the land glows at full intensity. From a distance, the building looks almost weightless, hovering between memory and dream. It feels both real and imagined at once, filtered through longing, recognition, and the strange familiarity of a place you’ve driven past a hundred times and still find yourself staring at.

For many people, churches mark return, refuge, or reflection. Here, the church seems to call from across the valley, not with doctrine but with presence—a beacon of stillness rather than certainty. What calls to you across distance, asking you to come closer? Stand awhile. Let the valley answer; it has a way of carrying your echo back.