Oregon Refuge [s]

                                                    Oregon Refuge 6 oil on canvas 20x16


 On a hill in the Finley Wildlife Refuge is an enormous oak with a platform built around it for a comfortable view across a sweeping meadow with distant trees rising from a ridge beyond. It is a rare scene of how Oregon looked before the settlers arrived and it is sublime. Though I like to work in series, I don`t want to continue without sufficient interest. Though I`ve only seen it twice, both times in Spring, this view seems iconic in its hopeful beauty. Here are the other five;

                                                          1. oil on canvas 14x11

                                                          2. watermedia on Yupo 12x12

                                                          3. watermedia on Yupo 20x20

                                                          4. watermedia on Yupo 20x20

                                                         5. watercolor on paper 13x11


 When he was alive, Francis Bacon was extremely controversial in the art world. For good reason I thought. In my opinion the quality of his work declined drastically after 1960 or so. Became formulaic. Earlier in his career he did surprising images of people and animals in motion, businessmen trapped in deep blue voids, the famous screaming popes and a poignant series of portraits of Van Gogh. Both horrific and tender, he paints the genius artist as he wanders the fields of Arles.

                                                                 Francis Bacon

                                                             from my sketchbook

work for sale in my studio


Portland Open Studios coming soon in mid-Oct.

Oregon Refuge 4-Demo-Finley Preserve

                                                          watermedia on Yupo 20x20

Last night I did a painting demonstration for the Corvallis Art Guild. I took advantage of being in Corvallis to visit the Finley Wildlife Refuge. It is an extravagantly beautiful place and yesterday was a particularly glorious spring day. We have these perfect conditions in May. The breeze feels warm and loving, the new grasses and blossoms smell sweet, the air is clean and fresh from the rain and here, the vistas are of wetlands and mountains. The world has never looked better!
So I arrived at the gathering with my mind thoroughly infused with beauty. Because I had anticipated all the various spring greens at the refuge, I had tinted the paper pink. I like to have something to react to. But the sky was the commanding feature of the afternoon so it became my subject.
The time allowed for the demo was short and the microphone wasn`t working so I was painting furiously and trying to project my voice. The shapes of those trees changed many times, especially today as I developed it in my studio. The longer I worked I realized what was most important was a sense of loft and buoyancy.

available work in the studio

Oregon Refuge 3

The bottom painting was my last demonstration painting for the Portland Open Studio Tour. So many demos have turned out well that I was beginning to think something supernatural was going on. This one too began on a promising note but then got bogged down in all that green grass. It was like quicksand in the movies, I was a goner! I gessoed over it after taking this photo, flipped the Yupo over and painted the top image on the other side. This is more of what I was after. Because the Willamette Valley is so wildly fertile it has a benevolent quality that`s palpable. The natives and settlers must have felt it too, they would never starve here. In early June, when I visited the Finley Wildlife Preserve  outside of Corvallis, everything was bursting with new growth and health, the air was clean, and the place was empty. We walked all over that refuge amazed to be in such a generous  beautiful landscape.
watermedia on Yupo 20x20


work in the studio

Oregon Refuge 2

Another view of Finley Wildlife Refuge near Corvallis from the sparkling early June morning I was there. We saw just a few birders but no painters. This is plein air paradise, artists take note!
watermedia on Yupo 12x12

Waterworks Show
White Bird Show

Portland Open Studios Tour
Oct. 12 &13 Oct. 19 &20