I Am Listening, Now
"An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize
the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are."
James Baldwin
Waking out of a recent dream, this image stayed with me: standing in the back of a meeting room, a tall, older man in cowboy hat and boots came over to me and, resting an arm on some high shelving to seem more imposing, said, "You won't win this, you know." But I felt confident and stepped forward, saying, "In spite of how this looks, we are all in this together."
The dream's meeting seemed to be about climate change or the permitting of destructive mining and, in any case, I had been working on climate change for a number of years and was feeling overwhelmed by the complexity and long history of problems facing us. Then came the annealing fire of the January 6, 2020 insurrection attempt in our Capital building, showing the kind of forces gaining power in this country and the actions and reactions by the various powers that be. During this time, though, I was finding some sources, especially Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" and Greg Grandin's book End of the Myth, which helped me connect critical dots of history.
I had been wanting to write a general artist statement for a long time but had found it hard to begin. In some measure my narrative and figurative paintings reflect the world that surrounds me and finding those touchstones and sources these last years to help explain more of that world has helped me clarify my thinking and find a way to talk about my work. And too, artists have a special vantage point in that since the majority of us are not part of the economy - except in our day jobs - and our creative work demands a place of quiet and isolation, we have a rare opportunity to let the world's noisy voices fall away and our minds settle in to do our main job, which is to know ourselves, find our voices and take in the long view. It is the job of all humans, of course.
What is taking shape - my narrative - begins with my 2013 painting showing four human skeletons walking out of a darkness that suggests fire. The title, "They Were Kings and Queens", names how we Americans have long acted: overly confident, regal even, and powerful. To be sure, we have accomplished many things and have much of which to be proud. By now though, at this juncture, I paint us as skeletons, having burned through resources, destroying even the barest protection of skin and muscle in our greedy and mindless grab of finery and resources, heedless of the natural world's importance to our very existence, heedless of earth's own needs and limits, and its ominous warnings.
The many travel paintings over the years show various routes and attempts at understanding, such as "Looking for Divination in a Sacred Lake". But some are more ominous and several represent the natural world showing us, telling us, coming in judgement about what is happening and what it means, like the phalanx of deer approaching the viewer in "A Sharp Intake of Breath" (detail above). Sometimes the images show destruction and loss, as in "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On", where the deer walk the edge of Montana's huge, abandoned Berkeley Pit, an extravagant example of our toxic thinking, actions, and impacts.
I'll never forget Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon/Mobil who had become Secretary of State for the new Trump administration saying casually, about climate change, "We will adapt, we always have." And maybe, making $354 million a year at the time, he will have some extra time and resources to adapt, but for most of us, the future will be increasingly unfamiliar and fraught. I show it in paintings where animals and figures are compromised, are maybe only reconstructions and not necessarily viable, at that. And in one of the more unusual paintings, "Familiar Things So Utterly Changed", a woman tries to rebuild from clay and paint what has been lost: husband, daughter, deer.
Still working along these veins, I paint "We Would Not Ask for Language", in which a stately bird sits atop a woman's head, her hands rising to protect it. If not exactly my head and the same red-tailed hawk that soars in the thermals above my house, it is an image about me and I am listening now.
And, in spite of how it may look, we are all in this together.
"An artist is a sort of emotional or spiritual historian. His role is to make you realize
the doom and glory of knowing who you are and what you are."
James Baldwin
Waking out of a recent dream, this image stayed with me: standing in the back of a meeting room, a tall, older man in cowboy hat and boots came over to me and, resting an arm on some high shelving to seem more imposing, said, "You won't win this, you know." But I felt confident and stepped forward, saying, "In spite of how this looks, we are all in this together."
The dream's meeting seemed to be about climate change or the permitting of destructive mining and, in any case, I had been working on climate change for a number of years and was feeling overwhelmed by the complexity and long history of problems facing us. Then came the annealing fire of the January 6, 2020 insurrection attempt in our Capital building, showing the kind of forces gaining power in this country and the actions and reactions by the various powers that be. During this time, though, I was finding some sources, especially Heather Cox Richardson's "Letters from an American" and Greg Grandin's book End of the Myth, which helped me connect critical dots of history.
I had been wanting to write a general artist statement for a long time but had found it hard to begin. In some measure my narrative and figurative paintings reflect the world that surrounds me and finding those touchstones and sources these last years to help explain more of that world has helped me clarify my thinking and find a way to talk about my work. And too, artists have a special vantage point in that since the majority of us are not part of the economy - except in our day jobs - and our creative work demands a place of quiet and isolation, we have a rare opportunity to let the world's noisy voices fall away and our minds settle in to do our main job, which is to know ourselves, find our voices and take in the long view. It is the job of all humans, of course.
What is taking shape - my narrative - begins with my 2013 painting showing four human skeletons walking out of a darkness that suggests fire. The title, "They Were Kings and Queens", names how we Americans have long acted: overly confident, regal even, and powerful. To be sure, we have accomplished many things and have much of which to be proud. By now though, at this juncture, I paint us as skeletons, having burned through resources, destroying even the barest protection of skin and muscle in our greedy and mindless grab of finery and resources, heedless of the natural world's importance to our very existence, heedless of earth's own needs and limits, and its ominous warnings.
The many travel paintings over the years show various routes and attempts at understanding, such as "Looking for Divination in a Sacred Lake". But some are more ominous and several represent the natural world showing us, telling us, coming in judgement about what is happening and what it means, like the phalanx of deer approaching the viewer in "A Sharp Intake of Breath" (detail above). Sometimes the images show destruction and loss, as in "I Can't Go On, I'll Go On", where the deer walk the edge of Montana's huge, abandoned Berkeley Pit, an extravagant example of our toxic thinking, actions, and impacts.
I'll never forget Rex Tillerson, the CEO of Exxon/Mobil who had become Secretary of State for the new Trump administration saying casually, about climate change, "We will adapt, we always have." And maybe, making $354 million a year at the time, he will have some extra time and resources to adapt, but for most of us, the future will be increasingly unfamiliar and fraught. I show it in paintings where animals and figures are compromised, are maybe only reconstructions and not necessarily viable, at that. And in one of the more unusual paintings, "Familiar Things So Utterly Changed", a woman tries to rebuild from clay and paint what has been lost: husband, daughter, deer.
Still working along these veins, I paint "We Would Not Ask for Language", in which a stately bird sits atop a woman's head, her hands rising to protect it. If not exactly my head and the same red-tailed hawk that soars in the thermals above my house, it is an image about me and I am listening now.
And, in spite of how it may look, we are all in this together.
