Home — it’s where we are safe, free, and able to pursue our lives with honor and dignity. Homeland 1, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, sold. Licensed open edition prints at Great Big Canvas, iCanvasART, and Amazon.com.

The story of the painting, Homeland 1, by Steve Henderson, at Start Your Week with Steve:

Some of those old sayings get uttered so much, we no longer hear what they’re saying,

“Home is where the heart is,” is one of them. Perhaps we say it so much because it’s true

For Steve, who has traveled and lived throughout North and South America — on the back of a bicycle, in a bus, on foot — home feels distinctly more so in rural areas. Meadows, trees, grass, an unfettered view of the sky — surrounded by the sights and sounds of nature, Steve is at his happiest

And yet, nature is not in a vacuum, and adding to the depth of these rural areas are the people who live in them. Many of these people derive some or all of their living from the land on which they live, and the time they spend coaxing a grafted fruit tree to “take,” or weeding a garden bed, or clipping chicken wings so that the birds don’t fly into the tomato patch and decimate it, is time spent thinking, observing, breathing in good air, and listening to the subtle sounds of daily life, far from madding crowd.

Many of us have been taught that we will only have open spaces if the government owns the land. This is not true. Good — ordinary — people, living good lives and doing good things, have traditionally been good stewards of the land. Homeland 2, original oil painting by Steve Henderson, sold. Licensed, open edition prints available at Great Big Canvas, iCanvasART, and Amazon.com.

Too often today, the term Homeland is used to express a sense of patriotism to a nation, or to our notion of a nation, but our Homeland is more than rhetoric. Our Homeland is just that, the land where we live — freely, we hope — love our family, grow our gardens, and pursue the gifts and talents we have been given, free from despotic control and regulatory dominance.

Such freedom is not, or ever, to be taken for granted, and if we are to enjoy the Homeland which we have been given to live in, we must be constantly vigilant to maintain and uphold those freedoms.

Land of the free and the brave — this phrase is the right of all people on the entire earth, because all men and women deserve the dignity of living free, and seeking to achieve and maintain that freedom, takes much bravery. Homeland 3, original painting by Steve Henderson, sold. Licensed open edition print at Great Big Canvas, ICanvasART, and Amazon.com.

Homeland 1 is one of a series of three paintings, the originals of which have been sold. They greet visitors of a large medical center, and it is hoped that the serenity and peace they extol comforts the hearts and minds of those who see them.

Homeland 1, as well as Homeland 2 and Homeland 3, are available as licensed, open edition prints at Great Big Canvas, iCanvasART, and Amazon.com.

Please contact Carolyn@SteveHendersonFineArt.com for information on Promenade or any of Steve Henderson’s original and licensed fine art paintings.

Read more at Start Your Week with Steve.