Transcending Painting

I've painted my entire life since my first watercolor classes at age 10 when I announced I wanted to learn to paint clouds. Composing the layout of a painting or the grounds of a university campus requires very similar skill sets - a good sense of design and understanding the variables in play. Developing the skill sets to paint in watercolors, oils and acrylics was necessary for me to capture the range of moods that Nature creates in the subject matter that I most love it paint. Unfortunately, this span doesn't lend itself to developing a recognizable "look" in my work, but I don't know that it really bothers me. The energized brushstrokes and lighting are the two elements that I want to apply in each media. I chose to make my living in the media of landscape architecture where design and the natural environment merge. This evolved into urban planning and thirty years at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, TN, that culminated with my serving as Deputy VP for Design & Facilities, responsible for overseeing the total environment on the 330-acre campus. Transitioning from that role and forming an LLC in fall of 2015 is allowing me the time to devote focus once again on producing art. Contrary to today's trends of incorporating ever-evolving technology and contemporary angst in art forms, I find works extracted from nature and translated in the appropriate media result in images that people enjoy living around and that offer tranquility from our hectic pace. The challenges of capturing some aspect of a subject that initiated a photograph or the energy of a scene in watercolors still carry sufficient validity to motivate me to keep learning and growing. The advances in areas such as scanning in reproducing images and giclee printing certainly expand the products an artist can offer and offer plenty of latitude for creative exploration.