GALLERY

The elongated shape of this painting is because the location of the site is along a roadway that one usually drives by at high speeds. It is a landscape of flashing movement and yet one might pause to imagine some of the elements that belong to this particular winery.

Bear Creek is nearby and is superimposed in the composition. Also included are actual vine leaves, twig trimmings, pictures of storage barrels and planting plans. Hills, sky and flowering plants complete the landscape and the experience should be accompanied by a glass of good wine.

Anyone with the slightest artistic sensibilities understands the wondrous beauty of our planet, a glorious garden that God and Mother Nature have provided for us.

But peopleʼs need to produce things often results in unhappy residues which put our garden in jeopardy. We try to control it, or even stop it, but we need the things we produce. So we make excuses to justify what is happening and sometimes say it is really not happening at all.

The central upper part of the painting is sludge sliding into that symbolic garden. That sludge consists of actual kitchen garbage encased in acrylic. A single flower protrudes as a defiant gesture to resist the pollution, surely a hopeless task. Other flowers, also encased in acrylic, are part of the collage that is surrounded by a frenzy of colors, suggesting to us the conflict between beauty and utility.

There are approximately 32 big cities along San Francisco Bay, but I chose to focus on the view looking toward Richmond. For me, San Pablo Bay was the most interesting from an artist’s perspective, being less built up and industrial. Here, the natural shore line is made up of rolling hills with scrubby trees.

The view is slightly overhead. Water and land are not accurate geographic representations. Currents and sun reflections are arbitrary. A tidal movement becomes a rough brushstroke. Since the Golden Gate Bridge is not visible from this position, its inclusion is instead collaged in as the engineer’s original drawing.

Even though the myriad elements might seem chaotic, the color balance and composition bring the painting together, demonstrating that chaos and order can work in harmony. Sometimes you just get lucky.

This painting was created in multiple panels to depict the aurora’s continuous change in shape, direction and coloration over periods of time. It shows overlapping images and movement that occurs over minutes, hours or even days. This is in contrast to a fixed image of a traditional landscape.

The aurora borealis is the result of disturbances by solar wind in the upper atmosphere (the magnetosphere) where ionization emits light of various colors depending on how high they are in the atmosphere. Interestingly, there are also southern lights in Antarctica and aurorae have also been observed on other planets in our solar system and on their moons. The aurora borealis is named after the Greek goddess of dawn.

At the base of Crater Lake on the west side, the Rogue River becomes an amazing cascade of rushing water and carved-out rock. The reason for this is because all the tributaries and the downhill slope, in addition to lava tubes at the base of the mountain, release a torrential flow that surprisingly ends after only five hundred feet.

It is a testament to the power of nature and is irresistible to any artist who loves landspace painting. My use of free-form edges helps to display the changing image of water moving from side to side and in every other direction and through and around rocks while creating unexpected waterfalls. My main focus is motion and the frenzy of splashing, so there is little reason to be representational. Also, the colors are overstated to create visual vibrations which emphasize that goal.

My main focus is motion and the frenzy of splashing, so there is little reason to be representational. Also, the colors are overstated to create visual vibrations which emphasize that goal.

When one watches a forest fire from the ground, the overwhelming feeling is of its enormous destructiveness to nature and property. Trees needed for lumber, the habitat of wildlife, peopleʼs homes, jobs, and business are all gone.

But from the air the feeling is one of awe about the forces of nature and that there is a long range view of benefit and renewal. Strangely, you might almost feel a love affair between the forest and the fire that consumes it. And someday soon, like the phoenix, trees, flowers and wildlife will rise up healthier than before.

The visual benefit of this experience, in creating the painting, is how you see light. There is light from the flames and how that light reflects off of the smoke. And then there is sunlight reflecting off of the clouds mixing with the smoke. And how these different light keep shifting and changing colors. In some areas of the painting, the colors are exaggerated to emphasize this movement.

The outer edge of the painting also expands on this concept and in one area there is a see-through element to express being above the event. There are forest findings such as twigs, wood chips and pine cones constructed into the painting. In addition, three larger panels of burned wood have been restored and are part of the pictureʼs surface.

The painting is symbolic. The fire is real.

Whether we accept the science of global warming or not, the melting of polar ice presents a problem to coastal cities. It also presents an opportunity for artists to imagine the seascape as an underwater vision which could include architecture.

This painting is a first step in thinking about that event, but only as a study of how currents move and plant life (seaweed) is part of the vision. Here the focus is on slow, undulating movement with an occasional burst of energy. Light streams from above while the ocean floor shifts and changes.

The free-form edges of the painting adds to a feeling of languid movement. The exaggerated color emphasizes light refraction and underwater space and allows for a more interesting abstract image.

My inspiration for this painting comes from my love of botany, encouraged by high school and college courses. It is not only about the visible external beauty of plants but also about what their perceived symbolism might mean to our existence. When plants reproduce, they do so without inhibitions and respond to all the needs of survival. Consequently, as disinterested voyeurs, we can observe this floral erotica without embarrassment, which is not the case when observing other life forms uninhibitedly exhibiting similar reproductive and survival instincts.

So, upon closer examination, who knows what we might find? Do plants have feelings? Is there passion in pollinization? We assume that only humans have souls and to imagine such emotions in blossoms and blooms must seem ridiculous. But for some of us who are awakened in the night by the sounds of delight coming from our gardens, especially during the springtime, it must be very thought provoking.

In our area, winter is light but long. Then comes an unsure spring, quickly followed by summerʼs blast, hardly giving time for plants to implement their designated seasonal routine. Nonetheless, all was successful once again and if you missed the lustful frenzy of this botanical bacchanalia, it is most unfortunate.

When seeing the landscape from the air, you are no longer concerned about traditional space and composition. Your view is a matter of patterning directly below and the distant terrain is without true elevation. You lose the sense of height of trees and mountains and buildings, and instead you now see geologic formations, cities as maps, and forests as botanical plans. And because you are looking straight down, there is no need to be controlled by the horizon, which normally helps to position things in distance and space. So you resort to creating the illusion of space by exaggerating the intensity of color.

One of the interesting advantages from this point of view is that distant shadows become blue and purple, which in traditional landscapes is the color the sky as negative space. But these colors, in richer hues, can now become positive space, so all distances are ambiguous giving you a dynamic sense of movement.

The bottom of this painting has more clarity and its shape is enclosed by the airplaneʼs window while the atmospheric and far away terrain opens up as expanding curved shapes at the top of the painting. The balancing act here was to successfully unify the composition, when there are numerous points of perspective.

Seismic events which cause great damage to property and people always seem to get involved with politics. We might ask why havenʼt our elected officials warned us in advance or made us build stronger buildings or had better equipment to dig us out? Or maybe we should blame ourselves because it means higher taxes.

This artwork was once an overhead landscape that had been cut apart and shifted to mimic the movement of the tectonic plates. The surface treatment suggests the force of that movement and there are renderings of subsurface geology that have been collaged along the fault lines.

Are thistles weeds? Usually when artists paint a floral landscape or still life, they are looking for lush and exotic flowers, rich in color and searching for a dynamic composition. But instead, in this painting, we have a simple flower, sometimes pink or bluish purple sitting in brambles, yet appearing strangely attractive.

Maybe we are just looking in a mirror at ourselves.

A simple landscape depicting unsuspected discoveries at the base of a mountain. Small hills and valleys, depressions and winding shapes, changes in direction are all pleasant surprises that we have never really noticed before. And suddenly there is a grove of trees pointing upward to the peak.

Could Mother Nature have planned this?