Portraits of Places
Many of my works appear to be landscapes, but if I analyze how and why I paint them, I could call them portraits.
My earliest attempts at art were always of people; as years went by I explored other subjects, working extensively in watercolor, etching, serigraphy, then beginning my professional career working in monotype and oil painting. Though I was continually fascinated by many visual phenomena such as light, atmosphere and color shifts, painting and drawing people came most naturally to me. As I continued to paint, I began to perceive a similar presence in other forms, whether hills, water or sky.
These “landscapes” are real places. One of my favorite subjects is a large sweep of land on the western-facing slope of the Santa Cruz Mountains, a ranch has been tended by the same family for generations. I watch the seasons play over the contours of the great meadows, I see the shifts of light under the clouds in the rainy season. Each year I am astonished that earth so brown, so trampled, can in a matter of weeks begin to glow with an almost fluorescent green.
This land is maintained by people and maintains the people in return. On the border of one large meadow is a group of fifteen Native American grinding rocks telling us that this place has sustained other people as well.
When I look at these hills, they seem to meet my gaze. This is what I look for in a subject, and it is how I can tell that a painting is finished: it is finished when it looks back at me. I work on these paintings the same way I work on a portrait, building up glazes, moving between a physical likeness and an essence I perceive, pushing colors, creating a “face”.
It is my hope that the viewer will feel the integrity of the land in these pictures, not only as pleasing to the eye, but also as a reminder that such places are precious: for us, for our fellow creatures, for the health of our planet.
