The Interconnection of Puget and Skagit, oil on canvas, 18″x24″, will be in the live auction at the Museum of Northwest Art in LaConner, Washington, June 15th, 2013.
This is the first painting in my Luminous Nature series. It began as a painting of a line of trees with sky between. If you look at the painting sideways, you can see it resembles some of my earlier paintings from my Puget Tree Series (link) of watercolor paintings where the trees are lined up with equal spacing between each tree, as in the painting Puget in the Trees (link).
At some point, I turned the painting sideways (horizontal to vertical) and began visualizing the tree forms as farmland with bodies of water in between them. My painting process can be somewhat complex. I see the connections between things. While I am painting, objects in the paintings shift form from one thing into another. It is my interpretation of how I see the world.
Shapeshifting objects in my paintings can be seen throughout my body of work over many years. Leaves and tree limbs become birds, humans merge into tree forms or the other way around.
The vessel shape at the base of this painting, in the middle of a red field, suggests it is filled with water, and perhaps sky in the midst of a field of tulips. I see the forests, water and farmlands of the Puget Sound and Skagit Valley as completely interconnected. One does not exist without the other.
You can see a preview of the auction art catalog at the Museum’s website.