My approach to art is emotionally based. Everything I see and paint is a result of an emotional connection that I have with the subject be it human or just a landscape. Many of my landscape paintings are full of memories and stories of people I met. They are not simply postcards. When you spend hours, even days, drawing a scene, the weather, the life and even the people become part of the experience. My artwork reflects this experience. Examples:
Taos Pueblo, 1969 to 1999
I lived in New Mexico during my high school years where I had friends from many cultures. We had Apache and Pueblo Indians at my high school. I tried out for our championship cross country team but I was always last. Except once when the Indian runners took pity on me and they slowed down to let me win - we all laughed at my obstinance. One of my classmates was an Indian Agent responsible for the Zuni Pueblo. We went to the Kachina dances every spring.
I first visited Taos with my friend Marcia Beauregard who was singing with her fiancee in a cafe. I was impressed by the large and ancient pueblo of Taos where people live the same way they have lived for thousands of years, without electricity nor running water. I had to pay a fee to the Taos Indians to draw and later to take pictures. In the mountains above Taos pueblo is a sacred lake, emerald in color, that is forbidden to outsiders. Years later I returned to Taos with my son to attend a corn dance, and again it was an emotionaly charged experience. We talked to a young mother whose father was a Taos shaman, and just as the thurnder and lightening struck, the dances began. One can't leave Taos without feeling there is power in the place.
This is from a picture taken during a bombing raid over the city of Florence Italy that my father took part in during WWII. His outfit was awarded a Presidential commidation for their accuracy in bombing the railyards and sparing the religioius and art treasures of the city. My father flew over 50 bombing missions. Yet he was the kindest of men even if the most macho.
here is the original picture from a magazine:
Memory Art