Kentucky Black Barn, 2026, acrylic and house paint on canvas, 16″ x 20″

We drive through Kentucky often. A distinctive feature of the rural countryside are the black tobacco barns. Back in the day, this was ground zero for tobacco production. The barns aren’t painted black, rather the farmers coated the raw wood with creosote. Tobacco barns were used for drying the harvested plants before shipping to market. During the hot summers, temperatures in the drying barns increased considerably inside the creosote coated barns . Creosote weatherized the wood and helped preserve the structures by keeping termites and other wood-eating pests away. So, although tobacco production pretty much ended in this area decades ago, the old black barns are still standing.