My art keeps me young. The joy of creation is invigorating; I approach each new canvas with   the same enthusiasm, the same expectancy, the same curiosity that I brought at the start of my career. The reality of time’s passage has been clarified for me with Sunset on Lamplight Lane, my return to a favorite subject of my youth. When Merritt and Chandler, my oldest girls, were tiny children, Nanette, the girls and I spent a blissful time exploring the English Cotswolds.

 The Lamplight Lane series, which followed the imaginary Brook Windermere as it wound through a romantic lamp lit village, was perhaps my most popular celebration of the charms of rural England. My oldest, Merritt, was five when I painted Lamplight Lane; soon she’ll be a high school graduate. I thought I would celebrate her life changes by returning one last time to Lamplight Lane, which centers upon the cobblestone bridge that is itself a symbol of transition. I even included a small rowing skiff, named “Miss Merritt”, to symbolize the journey into life that all of us embark upon.

 As I worked on the piece, I constantly searched my archives to make sure that each cottage is both authentic and unique. Sunset on Lamplight Lane refers both to the radiant sunset that bathes the village in myriad reflections, and to the completion of the final work in an epic series of paintings.

- Thomas Kinkade