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I painted this impression of Cades Cove in Great Smokey Mountains National Park  well over a decade ago.

Cades Cove has it all: history, geology, waterfalls, moonshining, colors, log cabins, grist mills, and bears. I painted this watercolor based on a few photos taken from the edge of a large parking lot. The hazy hot mid afternoon sun did not provide the best light, but I liked the big open meadow with the tree lines and the mountains climbing away in the distance. The painting is as much my memories and imagination months after the fact as it is the kinda crappy photographs used for guidance.

Some few years after I painted this, we were enjoying a getaway at the Snowbird Mountain Lodge, a lovely inn in western North Carolina. As we enjoyed a cocktail in the bar, I noticed and became fascinated by an oil painting showing - you guessed it - a big open meadow with tree lines and mountains climbing away in the distance....

Crystal noticed my distraction and inquired as to my inattention to our conversation. I told her that I was having a deja vu moment, and was pretty sure I was looking at somebody else's painting of the same scene I had painted long ago. Different time of year, different time of day, but the same view quite likely from the same parking lot vantage point.

I suppose it shouldn't be surprising. There are doubtless thousands of paintings of Cades Cove out there and who knows how many of this particular meadow as seen from this generic vantage point. I won't dismiss the possibility that the painting which caught my eye at the Snowbird depicts some other meadow in some other part of the world. All I can say is that when I saw it, I knew it, and I knew I'd been there myself, and this feeling of shared artistry with a perfect stranger is the best kind of deja vu.