I am often asked to describe the artmaking process for my work. It usually begins with a personal experience of "place", as is certainly the case for the constructed painting above, Presence: Enter.
For the past 5 summers I've spent time in solitary retreat at Nada, a Carmelite Monastery at the base of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains near Crestone, Colorado. My weeks there include beautiful hikes into the mountains where I carry a sketchbook journal and my camera.
For the past 5 summers I've spent time in solitary retreat at Nada, a Carmelite Monastery at the base of the Sangre De Cristo Mountains near Crestone, Colorado. My weeks there include beautiful hikes into the mountains where I carry a sketchbook journal and my camera.
Presence: Enter began as I hiked the North Crestone Trail a few summers ago where I found this beautiful little place that was filled with late afternoon light. It reminded me of places where I played as a small child, so out came the sketch journal.
It began as a line drawing in my journal using a micron pen. This process is a meditation of sorts, allowing the pen to move as I respond to the sense of place before me. In this case, I took photos and then added watercolors to the study afterward. In general, this seems to work better for me than attempting to do watercolors in the field, which I find to be an unwieldy process.
Along with creating watercolor studies and photos, I developed a digital image using Photoshop. It's quite exciting to be able to try variations of an idea in order to discover the most dynamic image. I consider these archival prints to be finished works of art in themselves. This particular digital image was then scaled up and used as a guide for the large constructed painting on layers of plexiglas.
The following images show the progression from the digital image to the constructed painting.
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