Staring Out, Again.

A two day storm blows itself out, revealing Hallett Peak, as seen from the easy, albeit windy, trail around Sprague Lake in Rocky Mountain National Park.  This iconic image can be easily captured by anyone with a camera.  I'm certain that anyone who might come to see it when it hangs in the gallery, might intend to go try for themselves.  I wonder why, though.  As an artist, I am compelled toward the expression of my own peculiar stories and ideas.  But what drives others out into the cold to chase an elusive quarry?  In the six hours I walked around the park chasing my own demons tail, my mind drifted back to the mornings I'd get up hell bent on reaching the top of places like Hallett Peak.  I think it was the post-holing hike with an incredibly heavy pack on my back that dislodged the ancient memory.  Maybe it was the very cold and humid spring morning air and wiping my nose on my gloved thumb.  Felt good to be out and alone, drifting with the low clouds taking pictures of trees being eaten alive by pine beetles, and rivulet streams flowing through troughs in the new snow.  Several months ago I hiked into Dream Lake at 4am for the usual alpenglow photos.  After that I hiked to Emerald Lake at the base of the mountain and climbed to a fantastic napping spot in full sun.  I didn't sleep so much as stare at the craggy face picturing myself somewhere up there lost in a shadow, perhaps staring back, but more likely staring into the distance, yet again.  When, on this snowy morning, the clouds lifted out of the valleys, I slowly walked back to my vehicle, groggy and cold, aging.  Something alerts in the trees and goes quiet, all you hear is wind and brushes of snow.  You've become increasingly aware in the hushed forest, moving toward the daydream, unknowingly lost, alone, and increasingly happy.

Riverbend Series, Plate 4

A couple of nights ago, I woke up from a dream.  It was more of a nightmare, but since I forced myself awake, there wasn't that normal continuation of panicked feelings.  In the dream, I was standing on a large rock that was barely sticking out of the ocean.  There was a great white shark circling the rock and being very aggressively inquisitive.  I turned my head to the person who was with me on the rock and said, "If the tide rises, we're fucked."  Then, I looked at my wet feet.  I was wearing shoes.  This is when I woke up.  When I was a small boy, I was very afraid of sharks.  It was an irrational fear, because I lived in Pennsylvania, but the mind of a child isn't a rational thing.  I couldn't close my eyes in the shower, because when I did, I would see a shark's mouth coming toward me.  As a teenager, on the swim team, I used to imagine sharks swimming in the pool during a race.  Fear of sharks, actually, replaced my fear of tornados.  Seems there's always something to fear.  Being an artist is strange thing.  I get ideas and make things.  I had this idea to make a series of prints around the central themes of water and distance.  Would you lose respect for me if I said, this project has it's own tide?  I hope not.  Anyway, you probably know what I mean, though.  Sometimes you lose sight of the idea as it's building.  You know it's there, but it's far off and a little past the horizon, now.  It may be getting closer, I can't really tell.  Damn-it, it's right there, you know you can catch it… but… you're going to have to get a little wet.

Riverbend Series, Plate 2

The second image from the series "Riverbend".  No luck on a new title, yet.  However, I was lucky to find several willing subjects in a single outing.  When I get an idea stuck in my imagination, it is clear and solid and tangible and definite.  Often, though, I cannot use words to express the idea and instead will use the sounds I hear associated with the flashes of colour I see when the idea comes into form.  Well… maybe art is like sausage, great on the plate, but you don't want to know how it got there.  I'll be direct, instead.  A stone cannot swim against the tide.  In order to create something, I have to let go of something.  This is an honest personal truth.  If you can accept that as the inception of my images, I can suggest  another truth.  In order to understand something, you have to let go of something.  A cloud cannot hold itself together.

Riverbend Series, Plate 1

I've completed the first image in a new series.  Riverbend.  The more I type that title, though, the more easily bored I am with it.  About a month ago, I was trying to write an "artist statement" for a local gallery.  When trying to speak about my use of colour, I had to visualize my own reactions to colours I remember from landscapes I've photographed.  Not being able to completely draw any one experience that defined those reactions, I instead, explored out from the feelings I have when moved by the light in some of the more dramatic areas I've worked.  This new series was born in the mind of a painter.  If you can hold an ounce of paint in your hand, it is a small world of colour.  As much as this dollop of paint has depth it can be explored, so much as it spreads around your hand it can be experienced.  The image above is based on a memory I have of being bathed in pink light during a predawn shoot.  The moment was powerful enough to completely stop my work and send me into a playing, dancing, hopping frenzy.  Lately, though, I've been listless as the season tries to change to spring.  A few weeks ago while out for a walk, I became very interested in the shoreline of these local ponds.  The intricacies of the submerged patterns was an amusing diversion, I was able to swim away into a pink memory, and float briefly, above the stones of winter.