PSST Member Ed Meanley: The Story behind his painting

Many thanks to PSST member Ed Meanley for contributing this article about his composition process in his painting, "Shinto Gate," and why the painting subject was so special to him.

The Shinto Gate by Ed Meanley

"I finished painting "The Shinto Gate" last summer. It was inspired by a gateway on my farm between our home and an adjacent pasture. ​I see this gateway every day from our kitchen window. This passage way is often used to visit our retired horse Lucy, to gain access with my riding lawn mower, to take meat scraps to the turtles in the pond and to go for walks with our dog.

View from kitchen

"The passage way started out as a stile across a barbed wire fence as shown. Family, friends and horses are clustered on either side. That is the way it was 25 years ago when we moved in. The awkwardness and the rotted condition of the stile inspired me to replace it with a gate (plans shown in photo). My wife Mary suggested I make the gateway into a Shinto Shrine style gate - as seen in the kitchen window photo. I wanted to paint the gate red like photos of Shinto Gates I had seen on the internet. However, Mary had lived in Japan for three years, and she said that “real Shinto Gates” were natural weathered wood.​

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"The painting reference photo is the last image.  I took the photo last year on a late spring day as the orange light of the setting sun illuminated the scene. I zoomed in on the gate and our only remaining horse Lucy - the key focal points. These were echoed by spots of orange color in the trees. In the painting I replaced the distracting mesh fence with more subtle barbed wire.

​The modification most important to me was that I was finally able to paint the Shinto Gate red!"   ~ Ed Meanley ​

Reference photo