MINDFUL ALTITUDES:

ARTIST’S STATEMENT: When painting in nature without digital societal distractions, all my senses heighten and I work in a state of mindfulness, fully aware of not just the scene before me, but all my surroundings and everything I see, hear, smell, feel, from the wind or sun on my skin to the emotions created by the experience.  I conduct that inspiration into each decisive and interpretive brushstroke.

Painting en plein air also makes me intensely aware of the ephemeral nature of all things, especially the most beautifully compelling scenes I seek for my motifs.  Our annual journey around the sun with its 11-year activity cycle now at its maximum, the daily rotation of our planet on a tilted axis, influence the seasonal variations, weather and light.  The peak of autumn color, or spring snowmelt flooding waterfalls, thunderstorms and fresh snowfalls, migrations and behavior of animals may only last a handful of days each year.  Humans are most drawn to the fleeting beauty of sunrises and sunsets and in the case of Horsetail Fall, we may have a window of just a few minutes every few years where the most dramatic elements fall into perfect alignment.   Rare wildlife encounters offer perhaps a few seconds if we are fortunate and attentive.   Aurora borealis may appear at middle latitudes for just few hours during the greatest geomagnetic storms in multiples of 11-year periods.  The majestic mountains and glaciers which seem permanent actually change over geologic and even human timescales.

Creating many hundreds of plein air paintings over the past decades helped me learn just how special are these opportunities. I feel exceptionally grateful and appreciative whenever I consider that many opportunities no longer exist such as the meadow and woodland floor of Hetch Hetchy Valley or extinct California Grizzly, each intentionally eliminated in the early 20th century.  In just my lifetime and personal documentation of the landscape through my work, I have witnessed change in fire behavior which now threatens even 3,000-year-old sequoias adapted to withstand hundreds of natural fires in their lifetimes but not today’s catastrophic infernos.  I’ve watched glaciers vanish through climate change as well as the decline or loss of quiet soundscapes, native plant and animal species and ecosystems.  But I have also witnessed the work of historic artists who helped set aside preserves like Yosemite. I’ve marveled at the heroic efforts of natural resources scientists collecting knowledge and helping restore meadow, forest, riparian and aquatic habitats, restoring fire ecology, historic scenic views, and bringing species like the peregrine falcon back from the brink of extinction in the 1970s and now thriving.  Nature is fragile yet resilient provided we act in time.

Following personal challenges and losses in recent years, today I paint with a renewed even greater sense of appreciation and gratitude for every one of these moments, however brief, for their inspiration may impact a lifetime.   The paintings in this exhibit were almost all created en plein air throughout all the seasons of the past year.   Many were painted from popular viewpoints with hundreds of onlookers watching me paint.  Most were painted alone with the solitude of nature.  The handful of “studio” pieces were also actually painted outdoors this summer by orchestrating plein air studies and memories into larger works.  My goal for the entire body of the exhibition is sharing the beauty of events, adventures and mindful experiences.