The View from the Ridge is a series of small paintings in progress throughout 2019. I observe this vista each day in my neighborhood when walking my dog, then return to the studio to put down my impressions. Some days I work en plein air from direct observation, other days I work inside from the distillations of memory and imagination. Each day brings new glances of sunlight and shapes of shadow. Each season brings new colors and atmospheres.

The field across the road wears rich gold in the Fall, a range of soft grays in the Winter, an exhilarating chartreuse in the Spring, and deep saturated greens in Summer. I don’t worry if it will be sunny or rainy, or if I will wake up happy or sad, I simply embrace whatever is there, in both the outer and the inner landscape. It is from this centered place that I can always make the next painting.

“Suddenly an experience of disinterested observation opens in its center and gives birth to a happiness which is instantly recognizable as your own. The field that you are standing before appears to have the same proportions as your own life.” -John Berger, About Looking