We moved back east to Maryland from New Mexico 2015. It took over a year settling in and finding a home and studio shed before I returned to making painting / collages. A distinction between Maryland and New Mexico is the marked change of seasons. The abundance of acid green foliage in spring is nearly overwhelming visually. And summer into fall of course is wonderful. We are surrounded by water and can feel and see the atmosphere. We take it all in commuting and Sunday driving with the pups through southern Maryland.
“Marching Orders” Acrylic and collage on Canvas. 24 X 30″ March 2019
No Title Yet. Acrylic and collage on canvas. 24 X 24″ January, 2019
No Title Yet. Acrylic and collage on canvas. 24 X 24″ February 2019
36 X 30″? December, 2016
This painting is clearly an abstraction, but personally evokes a storm raging over the hardscape antennae array, at the Naval Research Center facility near Chesapeake Beach.
I’ve painted stormy land and cloud scape abstractions on and off over the years. These Maryland iterations are in part inspired by seeing an advert for a show themed “Stormy Weather” shortly after we moved here, and of course the start contrast between New Mexico and Maryland. I make art out side, but am not a a proper En Plein Air painter. I work from memory. That said, “Swamp Circle and the painting following reference a very specific location: a sod farm located aside Swamp Circle Road near Deal/Churchton, MD. in early spring during and after soft rain.
Swamp Circle 2, Maryland. 20 x 20″ 2017 a caption
This is a restrained painting for me. I love the akin approach of “Tonalism” but tend to fill every space with incident in my own efforts.
This may have been the first “Maryland” and storm painting, painted after the “Jim” paintings following. I was thinking about a harbor. The battleship form on the lower left quad painted itself, and there it is.
“Crysalis 2” (below) is a straight up effort to emulate the collage work of my Father and primary artistic influence Jim Crane’s 1960 – 70’s collages. My work often dances around this influence. I decided to just go there.
I am still very drawn to the Maryland landscape. I think that I “internalized” it somewhat in 2017. Newer work is returning to greater abstraction.
