NE X SW | 30"x30" | Oil Paint on Stretched Canvas | 2015 | One in Private Collection
This series began with photographs I made while walking the Rockland Breakwater in Maine. I became fascinated by the granite blocks that form the walkway... the way they fit together, the spaces between them, and the repeated drill marks that reveal the human hand within the natural stone.
I used those shapes and marks as the structure for the first painting, but because we were living in New Mexico at the time, the color came from the landscape around me. The result became a kind of abstracted New Mexico landscape built on the geometry of the Maine coast.
That first painting led to a conversation with the director of the Clovis Community College Gallery, who encouraged me to develop the idea into a series of 15 paintings and offered me a solo exhibition.
And with that came a deadline... which has a wonderful way of turning an idea into a body of work.