December Frost

December Frost

  oil on panel  14" x 14"

It just seems these old trees have witnessed time stretching back for decades - they are evidence of energy and moisture and time accrued. The struggle to record the gesture and weight, to come to terms with the space and volume at times seem to be a kind of homage to the trees and the time they represent. This brings to mind a quote of Willem de Kooning's, "It seems that a lot of artists, when they get older, they feel their own miracle in nature, a feeling of being on the other side of nature."

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.