Iowa River Drawings

Iowa - first impressions

90% of land in Iowa is privately owned (or so I am told). Today I found a piece that isn't. It is a bend in the river where the army core of engineers engage in controlling the river via a dam. Next to the dam is an area know as the Devonian Fossil Gorge. It is an ocean floor fossil bed similar to what you find at the top of the Grand Canyon. The gorge was created/exposed by floods in 1993 and 2008 that washed the top soil away.

New Work from the series beyond|return

Great News!

I am thrilled to announce that I have been awarded the 2014-15 Grant Wood Fellowship in Drawing and Painting at the University of Iowa. I am honored to be selected for this fellowship.

A day's work

This Spot Pond drawing is almost done. The source image is from the Fells Woods, but I consider all of my drawings based on the Fells to be part of the Spot Pond series. (roughly 55"x55")

studio snap shot

I should probably wait to share this until I get a professional photo taken - or until I finish it. Almost done...

Open Studios May 4, 2014

Find me at 59 Wareham St., Second Floor

Studio snap shots. New piece.

about 48" x 55"

new work

untitled from the series beyond|return   55”x67”   2013

untitled from the series Spot Pond   61”x55”   2013

untitled from the series Spot Pond   47”x54”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   53”x55”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   40”x26”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   40”x26”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   40”x26”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   66”x55”   2014

untitled from the series beyond|return   30”x22”   2013

untitled from the series beyond|return   30”x22”   2013

Grand Canyon   40"x26"   2013

untitled from the series Spot Pond   63”x55”   2013

untitled from the series Spot Pond   70”x55”   2013

Straight Canyon   30"x22"   2013

Landscape and Memory at Cambridge Center for Adult Education

This piece will will be on display from Monday March 3 through Thursday April 17 at the Cambridge Center for Adult Ed (42 Brattle St in Harvard Square)
30% of sales go to CCAE, so GO BUY ART!

Untitled from Spot Pond Series, 30"x22", $1,000

new images of finished work

untitled from the series beyond|return, 55"x67"

Straight Canyon, 90"x55"

untitled from the series Spot Pond, 63"x55"

untitled from the series Spot Pond, 55"x43"

I started a new tall piece tonight.

Reception this Tuesday!

new series, new statement

In my latest series of landscape drawings, beyond|return, I pay attention to the places where pattern overwhelms itself and breaks down, as well as the moments when chaos falls into a rhythm. I look at details and see patterns that stretch back for decades, millennia. They stretch forward too. To see a pattern fall apart all you really need to do is change perspective, take longer view, or maybe a closer one.

My drawings begin with observations. I notice how the landscape shifts around me as I move through it. I notice how bunches of leaves that start as a group separate out and become silhouettes of individual leaves, before becoming a group again. When I walk my dog I notice the interactions between geometric shadows cast by rooftops, telephone poles, and wires, and the organic shapes cast by trees. I notice that on trash day there is an extra pattern on the street, a pattern that emerges and then disappears one day every week.

My observations lead to plein air drawings and photographs of the landscape. Using opaque and transparent paints as well as dry media, I create large landscape drawings based on the observed, drawn, and photographed landscape.

While my motivation - or impulse - is visual, bringing the groundless aspect of my landscape drawings to the suburbs speaks of the instability of the stability seeker's haven, suburbia. I think it also speaks to my own desire for stability in the form of a house nestled amongst some trees. 

I don't have any photos of this new series yet, but here are some of the source images I am working from.