July 3rd & 4th, 2012
Oil on Wood, 20¾ x 31½ in
(sold)

Although this was done out doors, thus could be called “Plein Air,” I was working from a photo and memory and whim. Well whim is too light a word for it, my spirits had sunk as I was pondering how my once pristine, quiet paradise of the Island has become overrun with loud boats, loud people, cabins where there were only trees, docks where there were only deer runs. I know the universe trends to destruction and I know I’m as much a cause of it as anyone. I hope that there is a heaven where all the ideal and perfect remain and grow better, the inverse of this system. In the meantime, I love to contemplate the storms that make us all alone and equally vulnerable to a nature that is bigger and stronger than anyone likes to consider. I love the chaos of clouds and water and the order that ricochets through them. And as much as saying so may convict me by a jury of my peers, I like painting water and sky from photographs. Studying a single moment in time, a snap shot of water and atmosphere stilled, is so invaluable to understanding the behavior and pattern of reflection, refraction, buoyancy and motion. Although I am converted to believe painting outdoors in the moment is the only and best way to paint a landscape, I am not a fundamentalist who eschews our technical capacities as unworthy. If we are able to isolate a moment in time to study water, I will undertake the education.