The Age of our discontent…

At a time when the world makes less and less sense, when disease has changed the face of humanity and the hostilities of factions govern an overly emotional outpouring of disinformation and the such, I turn to the natural world where there are no chants of fake news or insurrections; animals, the water and the wind follow their patterns as they always have as the days grow longer and humanity settles into a new, not necessarily better state of being.

It’s times like these that I find myself raising the hierarchy of nature in my stack of priorities; fickle nature, my unpredictable friend, my beautiful inspiration, she draws you with her subtle contrasts and clubs you with her dominion and I think that it is this relationship that will see us through, this long-term bond that will re-center us when the dust has cleared, the chaos has ceased and humanity remembers that love, not hate, unity not polarization brings us forward.

When I am painting well, I capture my feelings and emotions in the paintings and photography I make and I’m very appreciative to be able to share it here with you.

I am a water-media and digital artist as well as a landscape and wildlife photographer - the great outdoors of the Rocky Mountains is my playground, my church and when I visit, I can always find my center.

I often have collectors tell me that sometimes they cannot differentiate a painting of mine from certain photographs of mine and not because I paint in a photo-realistic manner as I do not. I suppose I see the landscape the same whether I’m photographing it or painting it - different tools, different mediums, same vision but more than “seeing it,” I think that I feel the landscape unfold around me and when I’m in the natural world, I’m keenly aware of my interaction with it on some higher level.

Though there are similarities, there are also distinct differences in approach between photography and painting. Painting is more intimate, it allows me to focus in on a particular subject and to interpret it. When painting en plein air, I don’t tend to move along trails or drive along mountain roads looking for scenes, I’m developing a scene that is immediately in front of me and those moments get seared into your memory as you unleash your senses. With photography, I’m generally telling a story, patching together disparate scenes in places to describe a day or night as it may be - I love to tell photo stories! The two arts are incredibly complementary - painting provides me an incredibly intimate near-view of time and place and photography allows me to get assemble a feel for the long view of landscapes and how they are interrelated to one another as they unroll in front of me. I know less today than I ever thought I knew previously and I generally challenge all that I think that I do know but on this topic, I am 100% certain - whether I am painting nature or photographing it, I am capturing the triumphs and suffering of the moment and encapsulating an outpouring of a fleeting point in time, when I am truly present, engaged, focused and alive.

It is these moments that propel me forward and hopefully the byproduct of those moments in time, as captured through my fine art that equally give my collectors a view outside of their own worlds, outside of what they are reading or hearing on the news and perhaps they serve as a window and a reminder that it is out there, amongst the Aspens and Elk, the Moose and Pines that dot our rivers, live in our mountains and draw us out of our long year of hibernation and rekindle us with a newfound, enthusiastic position of charity, clarity and purpose; and we can all begin to work together to protect this oh so important oasis, to preserve our planet for future generations so they too, have a place to go to recenter and reinvent.

It all moves by so quickly, we have all lost a year and many of us have lost more dearly but here we stand at the edge of that dark, cold winter, ready to emerge, a tango of color and contrast that harkens us to a better day.