Carolina Memory

oil on canvas (1995-2005)
60" x 60"
US$6,000**
While visiting North Carolina I was blown away by the beauty of the forests. This landscape is loosely based on what I witnessed but I began with the real image of the fantastically twisted trees.
Any artist is faced with the dilemma of how to say what they want to say. With passion, yes - but will it be, say, in anger or with love? Personally I've been influenced by the poet Erich Maria Rilke, who believed that the poet's task is to praise. The job turns out to be more difficult than it appears. What is there to praise when what you love is being neglected, destroyed or undermined? A young artist friend once looked at my paintings and, in his view, to express my real feelings I should have painted jagged red X's across some of them. Maybe he's right. Maybe my "Carolina Memory" should be thus crossed out. But I've chosen Rilke's dictum and I'm sticking with it the best I can. One way around the dilemma is to add the dimension of mystery. Life is large, huge, immense. I witness a tiny portion of it. If I can somehow hint at its full richness, then my own experience of it is put into perspective.