ARTIST STATEMENT

Beeswax has been used for centuries to preserve precious objects. It has been used to safeguard medical specimens and religious relics. In ancient Egypt it was used as a to preserve the likeness, and the memory, of the deceased.

In the same tradition these paintings are intended to preserve the memory of the miniature landscapes that intersect our world. These are often just tiny patches of land that are incidental to the surrounding environment, such as the bits inside the clover-leaf ramps that lead onto and off of the highway. Sometimes they are merely pieces of land that has yet to realize its full potential. Occasionally these spaces act as buffer zones between the populace and utility sites like nuclear power plants or scientific research facilities like the Fermi Labs in Illinois and Michigan.

As development continues to spread into rural parts of our country and our cities expand to become megalopolises we find ourselves ever further removed from the natural vistas we imagine our landscapes to be. Now our environments are filled to overwhelming with the evidence of our specie’s survival and the only respite comes from whatever tiny parcels of undeveloped land still exist.

Often these pieces of land remain because no one has yet exploited their potential to fulfill our commercial expectations. Sometimes they continue to exist through of the generosity of wealthy patrons who recognize the basic human need to experience the inherent beauty of the natural world. Still others are with us through corporate benevolence that has set aside parcels of land along with endowments intended to insure preservation in perpetuity. Occasionally the government sets aside land for the enjoyment of the populace or mandates that portions of land belonging to other entities be made accessible to the public such as railroad easements along which so many nature walks have been created.

But none of these places is guaranteed to us. Development continues in our cities and surrounding areas. Philanthropy has its limitations and corporate interests can, and do, change. Endowments are subject to the vicissitudes of the economy. Government protection is often removed to provide the population it serves with what might be called the greater necessities of survival.

So, like the Fayum portraits of the ancient Egyptians, these portraits of Transient Landscapes are intended to serve as memorials. Memorials to the landscape that used to be, memorials to the landscape represented in the painting and memorials to those who have provided these occasional essential moments for us.