PALMS

The palm imagery entered my work as a nostalgic memoir of Southern California. The strange shaped trees I grew up with turned out to be a strong icon as I moved north and noted the lack of them. The drawings were from my photos of exotic plants in Southern California botanical gardens. As I created the pieces, I saw the bright reflective mica surfaces of the underlying drawing as the unifying element. The thin layers of mica eventually replaced all color in the drawing, leaving only the abstracted sky.

Whether creating small studies or large multi-paneled works, when you’re working blind, upside-down and backwards, as I am when I’m laying these massive sand paintings out, the subtleties of landscape can be daunting.