EARTH SEA SKY AND OTHERS

The subject Earth brings to mind so much of what we love, what we don’t and what we fear to lose. There is the sublime, the horrid, the terrifying. Pollution, natural disasters, human folly, mystery, life itself, but then the respite of uplifting beauty: all are part of any story of earth. Following a series on Trees I found in a parking lot, calligraphic images suggestive of musical scales, I spent time at the ocean, chronicling stories found there along with images that were like paintings to me. A series called Tides merged into one called Islands. There was life and death and community, surprises in the sand, evidence of the indifferent hand of man, surfing dogs, and daily new vistas. The islands represented permanence amidst the constant change of weather, lives lived and lost, unexpected interventions and the purely mechanical. Ever-present oil platforms appeared as pirate ships, far from shore, lit at night as if celebrating something. The sky was a prominent player, providing a background of darkly ominous clouds, brilliantly hued or monochromatic, or an isolated shape as if lost or misplaced. Pelicans flew in formation while tiny sanderlings rose up or rummaged in unison at every returning wave. The sky was a prominent player in my backyard images as well. Contrails from rockets, power towers in silhouette shared space with birds, bushes, lights and poles. I look for an aesthetic of calm, sometimes humor, with a hint of the sharp, or dark that is always with us.