San Juan Mountains Winter Landscape

“A single knoll rises out of the plain in Oklahoma, north and west of the Wichita Range. For my people, the Kiowas, it is an old landmark, and they gave it the name Rainy Mountain. The hardest weather in the world is there. Winter brings blizzards, hot tornadic winds arise in the spring, and in summer the prairie is an anvil’s edge. The grass turns brittle and brown, and it cracks beneath your feet. There are green belts along the rivers and creeks, linear groves of hickory and pecan, willow and witch hazel. At a distance in July or August the steaming foliage seems almost to writhe in fire. Great green and yellow grasshoppers are everywhere in the tall grass, popping up like corn to sting the flesh, and tortoises crawl about on the red earth, going nowhere in plenty of time. Loneliness is an aspect of the land. All things in the plain are isolate; there is no confusion of objects in the eye, but one hill or one tree or one man. To look upon that landscape in the early morning, with the sun at your back, is to lose the sense of proportion. Your imagination comes to life, and this, you think, is where Creation was begun,” (5).

                -“Introduction” for On the Way to Rainy Mountain, by N. Scott Momaday 


This excerpt reminds me of all that I love about the natural landscape – the balance between fruitfully generous and unforeseeable inhospitality, impeccable beauty and deadly terror. My landscapes search for that balance, beyond what is simply a pretty picture. As a child, I fell in love with the paintings of Bob Ross and was a frequent viewer of his program “The Joy of Painting” on PBS. However, Ross’ goal was to create a formula for an image rather than experiencing the landscape itself. Yet this quote is what triggered the spark of inspiration, which leads me in my current direction with my painting and photography. As one with anxiety as a constant companion, I connect to the landscape, to that conflict within nature – the illusion of harmony versus the reality of hostility.

San Juan Mountains, Colorado. 2013. Acrylic on canvas panel. 8" x 10".