Early October Day

Early October Day

  oil on panel  12" x 18"

A little, non-descript corner of a field that seemed to me to hold all of Autumn within it's space. I'm always drawn to the ragged edges of the land - the places not filled in and neglected - if one looks closely enough the old fence lines and depressions left from old buildings' foundations can still be found. 

View of the Potomac From Murray Hill

View of the Potomac From Murray Hill

 oil on panel  12" x 16"

A new perspective of the river from high on a bluff - I'm more used to floating in my rowboat down there among these islands. This view was afforded my workshop group a couple of Saturdays ago by the nice people at Murray Hill, a beautiful estate right on the edge of Leesburg, Virginia. We had the run of the place for two glorious days and it was very special. 

Fall Day, Near Leesburg

Fall Day, Near Leesburg

  oil on panel  9" x 16"

A simple visual poem attempting to capture a day full of movement and color and change. The best paintings, it seems to me, are the ones in which the painter suspends any drive to control or order the world and commits to simply struggling to grab hold of a small part of the chaos. Willem deKooning was an independant and contentious fellow, never trusting artist-types who espoused an abstract / transcendant theory of what paintings should look like. Instead he wrote, 'the best we can hope for is to bring some order to ourselves'. He never could say where his work would go until he entered the process - the commitment and faith in the process without regard to finished product. Such work looks to me to carry an intensity and freshness that is intrinsic and everlasting.