For many years my work as an artist was abstract, although it was always fostered by feelings involving natural forces and my interest in many forms of music. A few years ago I became interested in a "sense of place" and began working "on site". These experiences caused me to become more and more interested in forms found in wilderness or semi-wilderness environments. In addition to the woodlands of Kentucky where I live I have become intensely interested in the land forms, vegetation, skies, and waters of British Columbia and Alaska.

In 1993 my wonderful friend, Bill Brody (with whom I had become acquainted while I served as a visiting faculty member at the University of Alaska Fairbanks a few years before) invited me to join him, artist darleen masiak, and three climbers for my first venture into the Brooks Range. This intense experience became one of the most important in my artistic life. The wilderness landscape is overwhelming in its beauty and power. It is visually in a state of continual change; often dramatically so. The changing light, the often blustery winds, the driving rains that sometimes turn to sleet and snow even in summer are incredibly challenging to those of us who try to paint. Yet, experiencing the earth from such a place in such a way is profoundly moving. This unspoiled, vast and unpredictable landscape calls me back again and again. There is no place where I have set foot that makes me more aware that we live on a planet in an unfathomable universe of which we are all a part.

On Site Study - Brooks Range, Upper Marsh Fork, Canning River
Alkyd on canvas
40 x 18 in
1993

Marsh Fork, Canning River, Brooks Range
Alkyd on birch panel
15 x 8 in
1993-94

Darleen's Mountain, Upper Marsh Fork, Canning River
Alkyd on birch panel
15 x 8 in
1993

Darleen's Mountain II, Upper Marsh Fork, Canning River
Alkyd on birch panel
15 x 8 in
1994

On Site Study - Looking East Across the River, Lower Marsh Fork, Canning River
Alkyd on canvas
40 x 18 in
1994