Paul McMillan

Southwestern Night Scene Painting

 
"Marskel Mine"
Big Bend National Park, Tx
Painted on location
20" x 16"
Oil on Panel
 
No. 41
In a Privite Collection
In this Southwestern Night Scene Painting, "Marskel Mine," an original oil on panel, I was inspired to represent the feel of the old mercury mine in the Marskel Mountains in the Big Bend National Park, TX. Inspired by the haunted quality of the building and the mine tailings at night from a view over what used to be a town in a very, very rugged location. Little is left of the town, mostly foundations and a few crumbling walls. The land was stripped here, and the physical depletion upon the landscape still has a grip on the desert hillside setting for this ghostly structure. I couldn't sleep at all in the campground at this site. Greed, toxicity, ignorance, poverty, back breaking labor, not to mention an unbelievably harsh and hot environment must have made this a real nightmare of a place to live and work in its day. What strange things happen out in the middle of remote and ethereally serene places such as this one is.
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