Reach out to the Sierra

About the Artist

I begin by walking in nature. A prospect, a color, a smear of color in the sky — these things take shape in my imagination before I begin a painting.

Even when a painting is started from life, photos help capture the moment because light changes so quickly and the drift of water over stones can change at a moment’s notice. The egret bending toward the shore waits for no artist. The sun has a maddening habit of crossing the sky and pushing shadows across the land. Sometimes four or five photos will be clipped to my easel for reference — but I never copy photos. I think the best way to think of it is that I collage my photos, assembling the best parts into a composition that satisfies my eye.

And it is in the studio where the painting becomes what it must be. I used to laugh when I heard about artists becoming lost in their paintings, but that’s exactly what it feels like when I am working: I am lost — and I find myself inside, wandering in a landscape that I am co-creating. Nature did it first, and I am making it new.

My paintings are meant to evoke a sense of place each of us has inside: a memory, real or imagined.