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| "Pacific Sunset" 16 x 20 Acrylic on stretched canvas |
Thursday, January 19, 2017
Sunday, January 1, 2017
Last Paintings of 2016
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| "Upstate New York - Canandaigua Lake" 11 x 14 Acrylic on canvas panel |
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| "Autumn in the Country" 9 x 12 Oil on canvas panel |
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| "Taylor's Creek" 11 x 14 Acrylic on canvas panel |
Friday, December 2, 2016
Saturday, November 26, 2016
Monday, August 29, 2016
Camden Light
Camden
Light
In 1983, my wife and I moved to Maine within a week of
getting married in Roanoke, VA. In total
we spent eight long, cold, winters in Maine.
For the most part Ilene survived them by spending time in her sewing
room creating a new wardrobe. I, on the other hand, learned to cope with the
winters by engaging in outdoor sports like skiing and ocean kayaking which I
did year-round.
But, no matter what we
did during the cold months to make life bearable, we lived for the summers and
our trips to the coast where we took great pleasure in exploring the coastal
communities and their many Bed and Breakfast Inns. One of the first places we fell in love with
was Camden, Maine with its picturesque harbor filled with tall ships on the
weekends, and a great French restaurant, Le Casoulet, where we enjoyed Shrimp a
la Grecque every time we were there.
It also was an ocean kayakers dream destination with
several islands within an easy paddle.
My favorite was Curtis Island, the home of Camden’s lighthouse where I
loved putting ashore to explore, take pictures and feast on a free lunch. Many Maine islands provided excellent
habitation for large oyster beds. Curtis
Island was one of them. There was
nothing sweeter than a lunch of a dozen or so fresh oysters on the half shell, still
chilled from the ocean waters. I also
learned, that the wild rose bushes that bloomed on the cliffs just below the
lighthouse were generally covered with edible rose hips. With a knife I would cut them in half and core
them leaving a pulp that possessed a sweet, fruity flavor with just a touch of
tartness. I used to think of
them as my dessert after a great seafood lunch.
This painting is a rendering of one of my many
photographs of Camden Light. It was taken
from my kayak on the ocean side, which is the only vantage point from which this
beautiful little lighthouse can be seen.
I have many fond memories of this island.
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| "Camden Light" SOLD 16 X 20 Acrylic on stretched canvas |
Saturday, August 20, 2016
Thursday, August 11, 2016
Saturday, July 2, 2016
Friday, July 1, 2016
Sunday, June 12, 2016
Monday, April 25, 2016
Wednesday, April 20, 2016
Friday, April 8, 2016
Tuesday, March 8, 2016
The Sentinal
The Sentinal
I grew up on a small farm situated in the geographical
center of Western New York. For those of
you not familiar with this part of the state, it is called the Finger Lakes
area. If you look at a map you will
immediately know the reason it has that name.
When the glaciers retreated 12,000 years ago, it appears as if a giant
ice age hand reached out and carved huge swaths into the land with its finger
nails in an attempt not to let go. Over
time many of these long parallel valleys filled with water and the land teemed
with wildlife. The lakes vary in size
from a modest three mile long Canadice to the lengthy thirty-five mile long
index finger of Seneca, whose 600 foot depth reaches below sea level. In time the Iroquois Nation of peoples evolved
and claimed this land as its own. They
are the people who gave names to these crystal blue lakes, Iroquois names like:
Conesus, Honeoye, Canandaigua, Keuka, Seneca and Cayuga.
Our farm was situated high on a hill that closed off
the end of one of these long valleys. From
our vantage point we could track approaching storms for twenty miles as they
moved up the valley toward us. We could
accurately estimate how much time we had before we needed to clean up our tools
and get in the house before it started to rain.
Memories
of these spectacular views were the inspiration for my latest picture – “The
Sentinel.” I dream about returning home
and renting a cabin on one of these lakes for the summer, and use it as a base
from which I would go out into the countryside to capture the beauty of this
unique land on stretched canvas.
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| "The Sentinal" SOLD 16x20 Acrylic on Canvas |
Tuesday, February 23, 2016
Friday, February 19, 2016
Horse Cove Creek
The
Saga of Horse Cove Creek
I remember the day well. In fact, it was exactly three years ago
today. I had been missing my granddaughter
who was in her first year at Brevard College working toward a degree in vocal
performance. She had set aside the
weekend so we could do some hiking in her beloved mountains in Western North
Carolina. She had decided to show me the
view from John Rock, in the Pisgah National Forest.
We had done some hiking together in the past. She knew that I had been an avid hiker when I
was young, and she had even heard the family story of how I had taken her grandmother
backpacking up on Mount Rogers in Virginia when we were dating. She knew that story well. She knew that it had been raining in Roanoke
when we left for the mountain, and that I had optimistically predicted that we
were driving two hours south to Mount Rogers and it would be a beautiful
weekend there. Oh, trust can be so
easily lost when you are young and just getting to know someone. My only excuse is that this was before we had
smart phones that can instantly give you the weather forecast anywhere on the
face of the earth in a nanosecond. In
fact, this even predates the Weather Channel, but that too is just another
excuse. Sometimes forgiveness is even
hard to come by when you take your future wife off backpacking for the first
time in a constant down pour. But Leah was planning this hike and she had a
smart phone and she declared that all the weather satellites were predicting a
great weekend. And she was right.
We packed up some snacks and water and off we went. It was a well-worn trail which crossed a
couple of streams in the first mile or so.
One was especially pretty. I learned
later from a USGS topo map that it was called Horse Cove Creek. We both wanted to get a picture of it, so
Leah used a series of stepping stones to reach the ideal position to take a
picture of the water as it came out of the forest and tumbled over and around a
series of rocks before spilling out into a shallow pool at her feet. We must have taken hundreds of pictures that
day including many from the top of John Rock with its spectacular views, but none
of them equaled the beauty that Leah captured in her picture of that little
stream. For me, that picture will always
be the touchstone to remind me of the glorious weekend that I spent with my
granddaughter in her mountains.
It is hard to believe that that hike was three years
ago. As I am writing this, I know
that
Leah is hard at work preparing for her senior recital scheduled for April 1st. Even at my age, I did not realize how fast
these years of college would pass for us.
And what a remarkable young woman she has become.
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| "Horse Cove Creek" - Pisgah National Forest 16x20 Acrylic |
Wednesday, February 17, 2016
Saturday, February 6, 2016
Friday, February 5, 2016
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