Line Rider

We Were Wolves (The Lacroix Commission)
24" x 36"
Mixed Media
on Canvas

2006

This painting was commissioned as a gift from a good husband to a good wife on the event of her graduation. I was honored to do it. The guide for this piece was the creation story of the Dogrib people.

The Return
8" x 6 1/2"
Mixed Media on Paper
2006

I've been working on a series of Red Ravens for the past couple of months. I am drawing from the legend of "Raven Steals the Sun and Moon". So far I've done about a dozen and plan on continuing to explore the images and pathways this venture takes me on.

Spirit Guide Redux (detail)

A painting is never finished. I've gone back and reworked ideas and images subtly, or in this case, dramatically. The original background on this piece was a solid, pale apple green that at the time I felt conveyed the shimmering, surreal emotion of the piece...and still do, as a matter of fact. However, I had an impulse to get my brush back on it and do something different, something more. It's gone now, so it's been saved from further re-workings. I also altered the face, making it more gentle and feminine.

The postive of this idea (that a painting is always a work in progress) is that I get to continually explore the ideas and feelings of a concept. The negative is that I often have people waiting for work that becomes a bit overdue. Somewhere in the middle is where I end up, and I think that's best...a longing for more exploration, and a finality, saying, "Done! Enough! Let's move on to other questions now!"

And so I do.

Spirit Guide Redux
40" x 48"
Mixed Media
2006

In Quiet Wood
12" x 16"
Mixed Media on
Canvas

I Heard The Leaves Fall
9" x 12"
Mixed Media on
Canvas

I spent a good part of the last month out in the woods at the foot of the Rocky Mountains. There are places where it seems as if no man had ever come upon it, and the forest is still and silent and golden, the water a tapestry of still movement weaving into and over itself in unseen eddies and currents, the surface deceptively placid and calm. If you sit still enough, for long enough, the wildlife will reappear, but in this exact moment it feels as though you are alone with the wood and the wide world, golden light filtering through bough and branch kissing your face with soft fingertips of autumn warmth.

As High as The Ego Soars

I have to admit, there's nothing more strange and uplifting than to see your name and work in something you had no part in creating.

As other artists will agree, we toil away at our obsessions in isolation, and it is almost shocking to look up and see that someone has noticed what we've been doing. A taste of acceptance and confirmation...dangerous stuff. Personally, I suddenly found myself reviewing my work and wondering if I couldn't have done a better job of it.

"That shading there...why did I do it that way? I should have added an undertone of blue. Now everyone will know that I did it wrong!!"

Or maybe that's just the fear of a closet perfectionist. But what are artists anyway, after all?

But all that aside, here's a shot of the magazine and the article by Clint Buehler.

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Shoe, Little Crow! Shoe!

If you haven't yet seen his work, I'd like to give you a link to artist Brian Jungen. He's a fairly prolific artist and he does more of the conceptual type of work that I really admire.

One of his projects has been working on a series of pieces that reflect his West Coast ancestry using deconstructed Nike Shoes as the medium. I'll post one link, but if you do a search, he's got a lot of exposure out there, even a wikipedia entry! Very neat stuff:

Brian Jungen