Paintings by the Water...
Lake Superior…..ever since my first encounter with the North, I have been haunted by a vision and a longing to capture the rugged yet delicate beauty of this place and express the immense feeling of looking out at the distant horizon . I use my art as a meditative tool to connect deeply with its Spirit, immersing myself (sometimes quite literally) in the process. One day, while painting on the beach, I dipped out a jar of water and realized that this was some of the most precious, pure, and powerful water on earth…water that so many people have worked to preserve and protect for future generations. So I asked…what could an artist possibly do? I had a mission. I set my inner compass for due North and eventually landed on Madeline Island, the largest and only populated island in the Apostle Islands archipelago . As the journey continued, I’ve explored the Minnesota North Shore’s ancient rocky shoreline and wild, boreal forests.
I paint with the water from each place, deliberately letting it flow, forming waves, landforms, clouds and skies. It is my way of communing, and ultimately my way of communicating my experience to others. My work is precise, and very controlled…yet in these paintings something happens. There is an element of unpredictability. Some of them have a feeling I can only attribute to the properties of the water. I merely hold the brush.
I would like to think that by viewing these images, the water will speak to you too.