The Inner Landscape of Beauty / Palm Canyon

A show of Molly Reeves paintings with mine, opens this Saturday at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Wilsonville. The theme is oriented around the late John O`Donahue`s ideas about landscape, our inner worlds and the impulse toward beauty. He was a remarkable poet who had a deep relationship with the Connemara countryside where he lived.

An old friend just sent me this photo of a landscape I did in the 70`s. The subject is a canyon outside of Palm Springs where we used to hike. There are several of these, the most famous being Tahquitz Canyon, where a scene from the movie 'Lost Horizon' was filmed.
Her parents bought it and I never took a photo of it. My memory of it was completely off, no surprise there.

Oneanta Gorge 2011

I always love painting this place. The last two Cliff Studies came from sitting at the mouth of this gorge with a long lost friend. We sat on a rock, looked up and took it all in.

Cliff Study 2

Another daily.

Cliff Study 1

A daily painting.
Chunks of basalt fall from the cliffs in the Columbia River Gorge. They quickly accumulate soils and decomposing plant life and are soon colonized by all manner of new vegetation.

Arboretum Wind

Deep Forest Shallow Pool

Any healthy forest in the Northwest can be quite dark in the summer. The damp, rocky pools where just ferns and mosses grow, especially appeal to me. There`s something solemn and peaceful about such places.

Landscape Abstraction

I don`t do many paintings that have unrecognizable elements.
David Trowbridge and I are collaborating on a couple of pieces for a benefit for the Sitka Center for Art and Ecology. I was trying to create something evocative yet neutral for him to respond to. We`re going to trade our paintings back and forth until we get something we like. With this abstraction, I got carried away and think I`ll keep it.

Collage #4

My BFF is visiting from New Mexico and we`re having fun despite the scorching weather. We scheduled her visit now, before the rains and after any chance of summer heat. Oh well, it`s not raining.

The Morning Fog Surrounds the Sun Drifting above the Waves

It took me a very long time to appreciate the work of Joan Miro. I couldn`t 'get' it until something in me was ready. Now it strikes me as profound, though I have no idea why or how he painted as he did, I`m just so glad he did.
Some of his later works have the most beautiful poetic titles.

Rio en Medio 6

A snowy landscape for our belated heat wave.
This came from a most amazing hike last April in New Mexico.

Water Wetland Field Study

I spoke too soon about our benign weather, the forecast is for the upper 90s by weeks end.

This improvisation began with the idea of contrasting the 'wild' wetlands with the geometry of agriculture. It`s a theme I`ve long been interested in. Without much of a design in mind, it quickly became a scene with many revisions. When it started to look like a Roman fresco I thought I might be on to something.