Thirteen Stones (detail)

This is only a detail of the completed painting which I will reveal in it's entirety here after my exhibit opens in May. This updates my previous posting of this image. The complete painting is 40' wide and 72' tall.

Meteor!

Here is a picture of the meteor that was witnessed falling over Eastern Oregon last week!

I've now posted three of the four paintings that I made specifically for certain people over the last few years, and this would be the fourth, which I made last summer as a going away present for somebody who I was sorry to say goodbye to. I knew my subject matter well enough on this one that I didn't need to refer to a photograph! One of these was observed coming close to the ground here in Oregon last week and people went off in search of it's smoking crator, but apparently in didn't actually hit the ground. It was captured on video however. Oil on canvas about 15 x 20

Marquam Bridge

Another Portland bridge also about 9 x 12 oil on panel and painted at the same time in March 2004.

Borrego Springs

Another California landscape image here, once again depicting a real place sketched in oil from a photograph. This has been a curious development in my art making that has only emerged in the last four years or so. I was once philosophically opposed to work drawn from photography, and inclined to draw upon my subconcious when rendering places, seeking the feel and spirit of my subject rather than the actual look of the place. You can refer to my previous post of "The Lake" to see what I mean here. Bodies of water perched at the edges of granite shelves are common in the glacial landscape of the High Sierra, but the regularity of the composition in the painting is nowhere to be seen in the actual place. I don't know if my philosophy is going soft or if it's just lazyness in my old age, but more and more now I'm tossing off the old prejudice's and using my photographs as a tool. In this case, I wanted to make a painting of a familiar landmark as a gift for somebody who had just built a house in the Ansa-Borrego Desert, situated to view this mountain through a large picture window.

Burnside Bridge, Portland Oregon

A couple favourite Portland landmarks, The US Bankcorp Tower, nick-named "Big Pink" is Portlands second highest building, and the Burnside Bridge, viewed from the Eastside Esplanade along the Willamette River. A smaller painting at about 9 x 12 on panel

"Thirteen Stones" in progress

Here is a detail from something I'm working n right now. It no longer resembles this image and is such a small part of the overall painting that I feel free to post it here. I'll put up all of the finished products in May so be patient!

The Edge

Here is the true beginning of my current project whch involves drawings and paintings of rocks and water in the context of an alpine setting. The center piece of this exhibition will be a drawing begun in 2006 on a 200' scroll of paper depicting a stream flowing along it's entire length. About five feet into this image I drew the stream leaving the picture plane by dropping off the edge of a waterfall that dropped down and away from the viewer inspired by and similar to the image in this 2003 oil painting. I drew about ten feet of rocky ground before actually deciding that the stream was to be the main subject for this particular undertaking. The stream emerged in the distance beyond he rocky cliff top that I was depicting at the time and continued thusly for the next 189 feet! The water in the valley below in the original painting here is rendered in gold metal leaf. This picture passed on to my brother this year as a birthday present and won't be in the show, so you get to see it here.

Still Life

Here is a brand new piece taken from an old photograph of objects on a piano when I lived in Los Angeles in the 1980's. Some may recognise the shape of a Seth Thomas metronome filling the right hand third of the picture plane. The form on the left side is an oboe like instrument sold by a street vendor in Guatamala that I got as a gift from a friend who vacationed there. It had a pair of slivers from a plastic cup for reeds! The crystals were momentos from my job when I was a college student in Santa Barbara. Sorry if I've spoiled the mystery with regard to the objects in this painting, I gave this one to my lovely wife as a Valentines gift!

oil on canvas about 20 x 15

Humphreys Basin

Continuing with the High Sierra theme, I painted this last year as a present for my father in California. My earliest awarness of the High Sierra was when I was probably about five years old. My dad would have still been in his twenties and he hiked the John Muir Trail with friends in the days before lightweight food was available They carried old style kelty backpacks that were essentially torture racks, filled with canned food. My father has had a remarkably healthy life, and continues to backpack with me and my friends and now my children. He will turn 75 on the last day of this years week long trip that will include an ascent of Mount Whitney.

View of the Mono Dvide

So, as I press on making paintings that I can't reveal at this time, for an exhibition to open in the Spring, I search my image archive for things that I can share that relate to the themes that I am working on now for that show. This one comes to mind. While the High Sierra is not specifically the subject matter of the work I am currently engaged in, my experiencees there over the past 40 years there have deeply informed the work that I am currently engaged in. This image was crafted two years ago as a gift for one of my dear traveling companions there on my recent expeditions to the high country described by John Muir as "The Range of Light". Raking the clouds at around 12,000 to 13,000 feet, the Mono Divide is a high ridge that runs from the east to the west across the range, located approximately between Fresno and Bishop, in California.