Paths and Paintings

Año Nuevo Path, acrylic on paper 10”x8”, 2015

With nearly two decades of landscape painting to look back on, there are continual themes in my work.  The work reflects the places I regularly visit with a heavy dose of western national parks and state parks, especially along the California Coast as well as the deserts of California and the Southwest.   So many times my paintings include a quiet road, or empty trail.  That might be expected because I love road trips and hiking.

A few weeks back I was having a conversation about the author Thomas Hardy.  He is one of my favorites and I have read all his major works.  I was saying how many of his stories seem to begin with a traveller on a road or path.  Suddenly I had this realization of this common thread between the literature I love and the landscapes I paint.  Thomas Hardy was a genius that was able to render a landscape in writing better than many painters.  Of course this could all be one big coincidence, but as an artist, I often wonder about those more subconscious influences that drive my work.

The painting above was painted last month, shortly after a nice hike at Año Nuevo State Park near Santa Cruz. 

Layers of time at Letchworth

Lost Letchworth Postcard, 4”x6” mixed media on board

Imagine a postcard lost in time since the 1970’s and finally arriving in your mailbox in the 21^st Century.  Okay, that’s an exaggeration.  But I am experimenting with image transfers and used a copy of a photo of my brother in Western New York’s Letchworth State Park.  We always stayed in Area C where we rented a cabin.  The same cabins that were built by our grandfather’s Civilian Conservation Corps crew during the 1930’s.  There are a lot of layers of material and time in this little piece.