Hiking the Wind River Painting

My natural tendency to isolate myself from the public in general and my drive to create art are one and the same. Those self imposed moments of isolation create tiny windows of opportunity in which I might view one miraculous aspect or instance in the natural world and by so doing, make greater sense of the world as a whole in my art. I don’t mean to imply my painting or drawing explains the world on a universal scale, rather with each work, my world, as I perceive it, comes into sharper focus both for myself and, hopefully, for those who view my work. During a recent visit to some tide pools on the west coast, I, not unusually, found myself away from the plodding masses, and focused on one seemingly lifeless puddle. After several minutes of patient stillness, a teeming world began to emerge from the cracks and recesses in the rocky shore and for one perfect moment, the whole world was three cubic feet of seawater cradled in a bowl of sand and craggy stone; and I, a celestial voyeur looking down on its inhabitants. So it is with art-making for me; a chance to step away from the world at large and into the alcoves of my own mind where equal measures of silence and cacophony swirl and where, if I wait and watch long enough, that miracle moment or idea to seize comes along. Who knows what that moment or idea might be? It could be the childhood memory of putting my hand into an old gardening glove, only to experience the painful bite of the spider that had made its home within the index finger or it could be the pondering of a recently read internet article telling the story of a little girl who had befriended a murder of crows. Regardless of what window is opened to me, I then have that next absorbing piece of the world for me to paint or draw.