Earth Cities

The process of painting in layers is very important to me, and I typically maximize that process in my work. Sometimes the layering is also philosophical or conceptual, as in the portrayal of what I call “earth cities”. These earth cities are mainly multi-family dwellings, of post and lintel with clay/earth construction. They are a composite of the pueblos in northern New Mexico, the cliff, dwellings in Colorado, and the rock and clay houses in Arizona. Earth cities may also be found near the Mediterranean; early examples may be found many places in our world. The general theme for earth cities is, to me, the geological, archaeological, and/or cultural layerings of the paint on paper. They are portrayed as being built up from the earth, and at the same time are returning to the earth.

The seeds of paintings like A Special Perspective as well as Peek Into the Pot, were planted more than four decades ago as I held my first significant purchase of Native American pottery. I had a flash of seeing a tiny pueblo/earth city inside the pot. My imagination -or possibly the magic in that pot- displayed a little clay diarama (kind of like a little shoebox scenes we built as children, that had a hole in the top for light and a hole at the end/side for viewing). The vision in that clay vessel was composed of the same clay as the pueblo from which it came,. It was the visual equivalent of hearing the ocean in a seashell. (Experience the lager through the smaller piece of it.) This is how this series of Pot Visions came to be.