a client was studying my display at an exhibition. She appeared quizzical – moving from one image to another and back. And then the epiphany! She looked at me and exclaimed,

It's All About the Light!

And indeed it is. It is that pursuit that defines my work. Yes, there may be a special focus an a subject or concept, or emotion. But underneath it all is the music of the light.

as they say — a long time ago, in a galaxy, far far away —

Our little town celebrated the Arts, Letters, and Sciences and honored local notables, Carl Van Vechten, Dr. Arthur Erskine, and Grant Wood in its institutions. Every school day I would enter past a wall-sized portrait of the Master, oil-brushes in hand, seemingly beaming and encouraging all of us in the schools where he once taught.

What is it that stands out about the Master's work? It is not the 'regionalism'. Rather, it is the light.

Consider several examples –

What grabs you first in the Midnight Ride of Paul Revere? It is the Moonlight, painting the story.

Light has a point-of-view. It illuminates the essence. It defines volume and space. i

Light provides the third (and sometimes a fourth) dimension. It invites you in and engages you. It guides you on a path of understanding.

For example, in Stone City, the Master inverted the sense of near and far, light and dark. The result is intense depth. In Pemaquid white, light takes our eyes from the foreground, over the undulating carpet of granite and quartz to the promontory where the guardian stands ever vigilant.`

Finally, light engages us in another quality – its exhuberance. The best examples include back-lit luminescence and where light and water (including glass) interact. No image can even begin to show how GW used this to celebrate Liberty, supported by American Soldiers of the Revolution thru The Great War, in the stained-glass window that fills the south end of the entrance hall in Veterans Memorial Coliseum.

Although Grandfather, a veteran of The Great War, was impacted by its message, I was simply awestruck by the light, the color, the wonderment.

One very fulfilling part of being an artist is to share my art with others, to meet new and revisit existing acquaintances and clients, and to receive the feedback from outside my personal rain-forest that is so necessary to the creative process.

As you can imagine, the pandemic impact to exhibiting artists has been and continues to be catastrophic.

All Fine Art and Fine Art & Fine Craft shows for 2020 from responsible promoters were cancelled. For 2021, many are already cancelled or postponed until 2022. Many are so limited in scope (local city, county or state-resident artists only) that they are effectively cancelled, radically limiting any opportunities for artists from small states.

Even today, minimal Public Health considerations are being ignored in many instances. For some, rather than adjusting layouts, procedures, crowds, etc., they are maximizing the size and density of the petri dish. It is a recipe for disaster. Any participation becomes an unacceptable risk – whilst the Body and Soul may hunger, Death, however, is incurable.