I was given a guitar when I was 5; it was my first creative outlet. As I got older, I would take my guitar into the acres of woods and creeks in my backyard, where I was transported to a place free of the cares I thought I had as a 13-year-old. When I vanished into the woods, emerging hours later, I felt like I had gotten to fly free for a while. Today, a couple of hours are hard to come by, and when I have it, there is not enough time to reset…to fly free.
Quiet places—I’m seduced by them. They are the subjects and the very dialogue of my paintings. My mind expands in the quiet and my creative energy explodes. While I celebrate this abundant career, the “business” of it permeates and steals access to that essential mental space, and the pressure and administrative obligations build mountains between me and my easel. As the months and weeks wear on into the year, it gets nearly impossible to reduce the noise to a quiet place. That silence requires time, and that time, for me, is increasingly elusive.
Read the full article in the November/December 2022 issue.
A Moment to Think
Pastel
8″ by 16″
(mountains at the entrance to the ranch)
About My Time in the Sun
Oil
12″ by 24″
(adobe near the ranch)
