In western Iowa lies a landform that looks from the air like a rough ocean with the waves frozen in place, according to Bohemil Shimek, early Iowa scientist. I’ve always loved that imagery. The edge of the Loess Hills, where they rise abruptly from the Missouri River Valley is often called the west coast of Iowa. To understand a little about the landscape I paint in, I’d like to share a bit about the Loess Hills and the Missouri River Valley from a naturalist/artist’s viewpoint. For more detailed information regarding the Loess Hills landform , a good site to visit is: http://www.igsb.uiowa.edu/browse/loess/loess.htm or read “Fragile Giants” by Connie Mutel.

The Loess Hills are a windblown, young landscape associated with the Missouri River. They are not ancient, rocky, majestic or vast in the way the mountains or the oceans are. But they are unusual, and have a subtle beauty that sometimes takes getting out of the car to further appreciate. Yes, there are the scenic vistas from atop a bluff overlooking the river valley. These are quite beautiful spots. There are also the quiet trails in wooded hollows, cliffs of loess soil standing in 100 foot banks, desert habitats (in Iowa?!), some of the last native prairies in our state, catsteps and kindchens*.

Because the loess is silt made up of small, amber-colored quartz particles, it has a very light sienna color to it. The soil itself feels like talcum powder. The combination is a challenge to paint. I try to convey the rugged nature of the slopes, the dry climate on the ridgetops in contrast to the flat river valley or the moist wooded areas found on the northern slopes of the hills. Catsteps are very indicitive of the hills, and an interesting feature to paint. These are mini-landslides formed by erosion and sometimes enhanced by grazing animals. They look like a series of lines across the hillside, as in my painting, “Murray Hill Morning”.

I am a wide-open space person and love prairies. But then, who doesn’t like to stand on a hilltop and see for miles? These are among my favorite places to paint. I try to show places that define the essence of the hills, contrasts, layers of the formation, and intimate spots. I love to paint special places where people have visited and recognize as well as places that “look like that road near my home”. I want to make it meaningful to those who are local here, but timeless enough that even if you’ve never been to the Loess Hills, it will strike a cord with you.

*In case you are wondering, a kindchen is a nodule of calcium carbonate (limestone) formed in air pockets in the soil of the Loess Hills. They vary in shape from small “little people” shaped to large egg shaped. These have been whimsically called fossilized dinosaur eggs.