"In the Studio", 16"x20"

I paint the world I live in.  For thirty-some years I worked as a carpenter.  I liked working on old adobe houses and I like painting them.  I live in one I built when I was eighteen, and I paint it often.  I paint the sheds behind it, the driveway in front, and the light as it filters in and over whatever happens to be on the table in the dining room.

When I wasn't working I was wandering the backroads of New Mexico, driving and hiking and just looking around.  I am fascinated by canyons and creeks and mountains, and by the small town cafes and stores and bars and backyards that are spread over the wide country, sheltered by stands of cottonwood trees.  And I am equally fascinated by the people who live in those towns, and the world they have made of it, and the look of it all in the high desert light.  I still wander; but now I also paint and sketch as I go, and bring it back to the studio.

We moved to Santa Fe when I was a teenager.  It's changed since then, and not always, or even often, for the better.  But, working in construction, I made my living from the changes I now complain about; and, anyhow, there are still many corners, old and new, that catch my eye, and interesting groups of guys hanging out on them.  I'm sure any other place would be as good, but this is where I am.  As Renoir said of Gauguin, he didn't have to go to the South Seas to find something to paint, there's plenty to paint in Paris.  I think the strange and spectacular can be a distraction, and that it doesn't require an artist to show you the beauty in a sunset, or the Grand Canyon.  But an artist might find a kind of poetry you hadn't noticed in your backyard.