While Eric grew up in the city, summers and holidays at his grandfather’s farm in Idaho left a lasting and significant impression on his heart. Wandering the old, rusted outbuildings, exploring the potato cellar, watching the animals in the pastures at sunset, turning rusted and strange tools over in his hands and wondering about their significance...created an appreciation for detail, for mystery, for the simplicity and beauty in bucolic scenes and sights and smells. Far from rural America, the Japanese have a concept called “wabi-sabi” that Eric has always been fascinated with - it creates a connection between two cultures that is profound. “The aging of things, the use, the history, the rust and the wrinkles and the fingerprints - they tell a story. Of usefulness, of impermanence, yet resilience and wisdom. The Japanese appreciate their elders, and an old hammer is appreciated and beautiful in the same way.” Rural America is always where the Thompsons took their vacations, and Eric has always painted these scenes that captured his childhood. In 2022 he moved to a tiny town of 1400 people, a lot more cows and sheep, with no stoplight, and clean air. Seeing extraordinary in the ordinary, Thompson’s exhibit seeks to illuminate the American Farm - its beauty, the economy of re-use, the craftmanship and care and weathering of dwelling places, the royalty of livestock, the poetry in the lines of an alfalfa field... “I wanted to create an exhibit where others could immerse themselves in this rural beauty I’m lucky enough to live in every day. I want them to see the exquisite form within the function, imagine the sturdy souls that walked these fields and used these tools, I want them to smell the clean air and breathe in the American farm life that is truly the silent heartbeat of our country.”
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