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November 09th, 2018

11/9/2018

Chasing the Sun. That’s how I see the compulsion that drove my grandparents across the Atlantic to start over in this fresh, new country. Making a break with the cold, dark winters of northern Scandinavia each one came with different expectations of this new life. Optimism and ambition were stronger forces than the ties that would keep them entrenched in the cold and dark, mourning for the sun.
In this damp and cloudy place I now call home I’m driven to chase the sun, hanging onto every ray, afraid I’ll miss the last bit of warm bright light. Have I made the most of the sunshine days?

Stillness in the Midst of Chaos

11/6/2017

"Almost Landscape II" encaustic, 10x10

“Art has something to do with the achievement of stillness in the midst of chaos” Saul Bellow

"Almost Landscape III" 10x10, encaustic

The Painted Desert, Broken Open

10/27/2017

Painted Desert, National Park Series, Mixed Media in 3 parts each 12 x 36

There are places where the earth is broken open, slashed through to expose the guts of the place.

Chasing the Sun IV

10/1/2017

Chasing the Sun IV, 6.5 x 7.5, encaustic with collage elements

My ancestors struggled in the cold grey of Scandinavia. They immigrated, worked hard, and made it easier for me to work for what I wanted along side what I needed. So I ask, am I making the best use of my place in the sun?

Chasing the Sun II

9/27/2017

Chasing the Sun III, 9 x 12, encaustic with collage elements

The days are getting shorter.
Definitely thinking about Chasing the Sun now.

Chasing the Sun II, 14 x 11, encaustic with collage elements

That Broken Hallelujah

9/16/2017

Broken Hallelujah, 40x30, Encaustic/mixed media

Beauty even in brokenness--I think that's what Cohen was writing about...

“...There’s a blaze of light
In every word
It doesn’t matter which you heard
The holy or the broken hallelujah?”
Leonard Cohen, composer

“The wound is where the light enters you”
Rumi, 15th century Sufi Mystic

Chasing the Sun

9/9/2017

Chasing the Sun: Daybreak, 12 x 36, Encaustic with photo bits

Searching & Chasing the Sun — I’ve done some paintings with the idea of “Chasing the Sun.” These are a side trip along my Searching for Beauty in a Broken World journey. These paintings are visual metaphors which focus on bright bits of optimism with strong mid-day yellows, sunset oranges and reds, and occasional piercing metallics.

It's been a while

9/5/2017

It’s been a while. I haven’t made many entries here but I’m still searching for those bits of Beauty in this Broken World. They’re there. Just seems like lately they are so much harder to find.
But a recent road trip to the east coast opened my eyes. Wow. I'd forgotten just how awesome is Acadia National Park!

Beautifully Strange

8/15/2017

BB. He's a blue frog, supposed to be green like the rest of the frogs in the pond but he's lacking yellow pigment--kind of like an albino but he's only lacking the one color - which makes him blue instead of green. He's stunning. Or he was. He's been missing since I saw a large snapping turtle in his area of the pond. ugh

Lately I've been thinking

7/16/2017

Embedded Grief II, Encaustic with gravestone rubbing

I’ve done a lot of painting lately, entered some gallery shows, set up a solo show in July/August, made sketches of ideas and written a lot about this whole idea of Searching for Beauty in this Broken World. I’ve been settling out the different elements of this theme: How & where do we Search? What is Beauty anyway? Why is it so easy to see what is Broken? And when can we see that sometimes a break is what we really need?

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ArtWorking...

A journey through the creative process, working and traveling in the Northern Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

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I practice artworking in several different media: encaustic, collage, egg tempera, block printing, and digital

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