“Midnight Bloom” represents a “cave” of treasures that grow and mature slowly in the pitch black darkness. I grew up near an abandoned gravel pit on the banks of the North Saskatchewan River near Edmonton, Alberta. In the huge, ugly, gravel piles, I searched for a treasure of fossils, agates and crystals. Beauty can be found rising out of the midst of destruction. As I looked for beauty in the form of river smoothed stones, I was also searching for the peace and independence hidden within me, waiting to “bloom”.
“Man in the Moon” sprang from memories of primitive rock paintings in the southwest. Petroglyphs are said to depict gods and spirits (or space travelers/aliens, depending on who you believe). The raised outline of the “man” served as a barrier as I blended flows of color in and around him. He floats in space, a spirit, surrounded by land, water, fire and light.
A squall is a sudden, violent gust of wind associated with rain or snow. Growing up in the prairie, we often had enormous thunderstorms blow across the plains. The wind would pick up and huge purple thunderheads would appear in the sky, bringing flashes of lightning and pounding hail. I was exhilarated by howling winds and rain and would listen as our log house creaked and groaned. Thunderstorms have awed me ever since. “Squall” is my representation of the signals of change in nature and in our lives.
A pulse is a rhythmical beat or vibration. A pulse can also be underlying feelings. The rhythm or pulse of life is a pattern of overlapping and interwoven sequences. “Pulse,” with its layered colors and shapes, illustrates the complexities and nuances of life’s cadence. I applied the “action painting” technique Jackson Pollack used, letting paint fall where my subconscious mind willed, allowing the underlying, unconscious psyche to express itself.
Commute is the daily travel to and from work. While going to college in the Bay Area, I worked as a delivery driver. The roads were a maze of highways, alleys, streets and bridges. Stuck in traffic jams with commuters, I would gaze up at the serpents of concrete overpasses and down at the signs, lights and skid marks.”Commute” represents my memories of urban roadways.
“Bushido” was the warrior code of honor among the samurai in feudal Japan. The samurai often practiced a meditative or “Zen” state before entering battle. In Taiwan, I visited a calligrapher’s studio and listened to him talk about the breathing and relaxation techniques he employed while doing calligraphy. When I started this painting, I decided to try deep breathing to let the painting flow out of my movements. I wasn’t sure if these breathing techniques worked, but I liked the end result.
“Depth” has many levels of meaning.”Depth” can be defined literally as the measurement from top downward, or as perspective, a way of looking at life. Throughout life, depth can be searched for within ourselves. This piece melds a search for depth with the love of the ocean. Water has a powerful, primal attraction, a limitless depth. The vastness of the ocean and the fact that it is largely unexplored, make it mysterious. Varied blue tones characterize different levels and obscure hidden secrets yet to be discovered within the depths.
Resurrection is a rising from the dead or coming back to life. In Buddhism, every action we perform while living leaves an imprint or karma. Virtuous actions sow the seeds of future happiness, and non-virtuous actions sow the seeds of future suffering. All matter in the universe is recycled and born again in a different form. “Resurrection” depicts this rebirth and renewal of life.
The stream beds in Glacier National Park are a kaleidoscope of colorful pebbles. The background colors of this work sprang from my memories of those mountain streams with their moss covered banks and rainbow beds of stone. The secondary layer of the Man and Fish draws from Ernest Hemingway’s The Old Man and the Sea, in which the hero, Santiago, represents the courage, strength and endurance of the human race. The fish symbolizes Santiago’s struggle with his faith.
The name for this piece comes from Zeus, the god of thunder and lightning, in both Greek and Roman mythology. As a child, I was awed by the powerful prairie thunderstorms that passed over my home. They came and left quite suddenly, with torrents of rain and hail followed by quiet drips and sunlit rainbows. The painting “Zeus” symbolizes nature?s unpredictability.