Black Hills Artist
Black Hills Artist
If you find yourself baking on a stage of black shale while the sun burns above you, see if you can spot the iridescence of an ancient fossil. Odds are the animal’s last swim happened about 65 million years ago. But if lucky, you’ll find a form that’s as fragile as it is permanent, aesthetically shaped, and adorned with an incredible amount of detail.
In the following pieces, fossils as subject matter provide viewers with a glimpse of Earth’s ancient animals.
Acrylic on Canvas | 33” x 41” | $1950
Colorful ammonites whirl and spin in a balanced composition. Eye catching rectangles emerge from a flaxen background. These geometric shapes serve as design hosts to imagine and radiant ammonites.
Ammonites had a coiled “external shell” like the modern nautilus. The 360-degree whorl rotation aided in protection, flotation, and jet propulsion. As an artist, I portray ammonites on canvas by reawakening the animal with detailed strokes, iridescent shine, and diverse colors.
Ammonites' intricate spirals and vibrant colors tell a story of deep geological history intertwined with cultural legends and artistic inspiration. Ammonites were named after the Greek god Ammon because their shells resemble his ram's horns. Scientists value ammonites because they were common during their time, easy to identify, and make excellent fossil guides for stratigraphy. Art and science meet once more!
Acrylic on paper | 28” x 22” | $2500
“Ammonite Close Out” represents the end of this these animals about 66-million years ago. At that time, three-fourths of plants and animals vanished from Earth. This catastrophic event, known as the K-T extinction, is among the most famous mass extinctions in ancient history.
This painting on canvas reveals an accumulation of detailed ammonites in assorted colors and sizes as they swarm in a “buddy” whorl of death. This artwork projects calm beauty and peaceful movement down the water column, wrapped in pastel sediments. In truth, accumulated sediments covered ammonite bodies, and bacterial decomposition preserved the corpses. The color and iridescence of an ammonite’s shell results from nacre that becomes aragonite during fossilization.
Evolution occurs through the balance of the end of one species and the creation of a new one. Although small mammals did live beside giant dinosaurs, post K-T extinction, dinosaurs came to the end of their story while mammals ushered in a new world.
Acrylic on board | 18 “ x 28” | $675
Ammonites are long gone. The last of their coiled shell and tentacled bodies disappeared in a mass extinction about 66-million years ago. In contrast to the harshness of this devastating death of sea life, I painted “Plight of the Ammonites” in softness with their pastel, coiled bodies drifting above blue rhythmic waters.
The strokes, colors, and shapes invoke softness and calm. In reality ammonites encountered a dark death. A potential reason for death during extinction is volcanic eruptions that emitted tons of toxins into the air resulting in a sharp drop in ocean pH levels. In addition, an asteroid struck Earth’s crust creating a hole more than 10-miles deep and 100-hundred miles wide. The ensuing devastation resulted in tsunamis, wildfires, earthquakes, and volcanic eruptions around the planet.
Peace and calm to these fossils.
Acrylic | 36”x 12” | $950
The “Spiral Ride” highlights ammonites in horizontal movement captured in a background of poured acrylics. Ammonites moved by jet propulsion, expelling water through a funnel-like opening to propel themselves in the opposite direction. This painting plays with fanciful, rolling positions showcasing the brightly colored ribbing of ammonites turning in the flow.
Batik on cloth | 24”x32” | $1400
Bring on the crazy blinged ammonites! Bling it to interference colors in brilliant high chroma! Bling it to sparkles and metallics! All wrapped up in a swirling kaleidoscope swim. Okay, I let the creative processes take charge in this fanciful batik.
The batik’s web-like signature holds the colorful ammonites in an intwined, geometric background with a design that stabilizes the swing. Cerulean blues, spring yellow greens, rusty siennas, and light lavenders zing around and through the subject. Originative vision is so fun!
Clay, metal, Sphenodiscus sculpture | 16” X 13” X 6”
The ammonite Sphenodiscus elegantly balances in space by curved and spliced wrought iron. A slash mark on the ammonite shell reveals a shark bite that instantaneously occurred about 60-million years ago. Sculpted clay encircles the ammonite suggesting a frenzied moment of attack. This sculpture captures an ancient encounter and death by an obvious victor.
Acrylic and nacreous shell, on b” | 15” X 28” | $1,400
This vibrant painting depicts an ammonite’s survival in a shallow sea. In this painting, acrylics in free flow capture water movement as the suspended ammonite evolves from painterly stokes. Fragments of iridescent shell flicker within the sediments as a tribute to death.
Acrylic on paper | 13.5” x 9.5” | $825
Hoploscaphites is among the diversified fossils within the Pierre Shale of South Dakota. This ammonite’s final whorl projects forward in a surge of backward momentum. The diagonal movement explodes in dazzling colors dancing on iridescent shells. This festival of colors is reminiscent of a holiday celebration designed by nature.
Acrylic on paper | 22” x 28” | $3,200
Two ammonites spin in an aqueous dance as they dive within a water column. The “siphuncle” organ facilitated this vertical movement by allowing gases and water to enter the animals’ chambers. In this work, the appearance of water emerged by touching color-loaded brushes to a wet paper surface. The result was a spontaneous flow of pigments and an uncontrollable saturation of pigment within salt crystals. Thickly applied acrylic paint details the ribs and nodes of the textured forms, and torn copper paper stabilizes the animals.
Acrylic on paper, fossil specimen of Teredo burrowed petrified wood | 15” x 29” | $1,100
An “Ichnofossil” is a geologic record of biological activity that occurred in ancient times. This painting creatively documents the movement and survival of Teredo clams. As pieces of wood floated on the 60 million-year-old Western Interior Seaway, clams attached, burrowed, dined, and enjoyed the ride. Rhythmic lines and rich colors of ancient movement are visible in the embedded cross-cut specimen of petrified wood. The enlarged clams in this acrylic painting illustrate functional detail for survival.
Clay sculpture and Scaphites specimen | 10.5” x 8.5” x 8.5” | $450
The vivid memory of removing an ammonite from Pierre Shale provided inspiration for this three-dimensional sculpture. A feel of organic movement with vertical movement was essential. To achieve this sensation, slab clay was built in a revolving ascent that reflects the spirit of freedom as well as the thrill of discovery buried in the original memory. The Scaphites is cradled in protective curves of this hand-built sculpture cradle.
Acrylic/watercolor on paper | 14” x 22” | $850
An ammonite’s cross section perfectly illustrates the meaning of “functional design.” Radiating septa divide chambers and provide strength from external forces. With ideal anatomy for survival, ammonites thrived for 150 million years. This painting plays against a positive-negative view held in reds, violets, and ambers that enter a neutral border. The background was achieved by alternating layers of acrylic colors and masks resulting in the feeling of movement.
Acrylic on paper/embossing | 21.5” x 16.5” | $2,000
Jeletzkytes propelled in a 60-million-year-old seaway that divided North America into two land masses. In this work, dramatic colors, lines, and textures resurrect the extinct ammonite. Color optics created with layered pearlescent acrylics echo the gleaming iridescence of the aragonite shell as the animal moves through embossed paper waves. The black enamel band — laced with loops of color — anchors the piece in the balance of positive and negative space.
Acrylic on paper on board | 22” x 28” | $2,500
Millions of years have passed since the ammonite thrived as a living form. Yet it’s still fascinating to discover the animal’s fossilized remains. This painting displays a collection of ammonite genera, boldly arrayed in iridescent orange, blue, and purple and spatially stationed with colored sand. Placenticeras takes center stage, exposing septa through fractures of white pearlescent paint.
Acrylic on paper | 18.5” x 16.5” | $1,600
The sea-dwelling ammonite Hoploscaphites encountered death and was then buried in sediment. If the conditions were right, the animal then fossilized and buried with the Pierre Shale. The sediment eventually eroded providing the discoverer the first look at this 60-million-year-old animal. In this painting, transparent layers of acrylic paint work in concert to achieve the color, line, and texture of this ornate fossil in radiating bands of sediment.
Acrylic and lacquer on paper | 22” x 30” | SOLD
The Cretaceous Great Western Sea was home to a fantastic array of marine lifeforms including the gastropod Teredo. This clam sported a functional helmet-like shell of narrow ridges that glommed onto wood floating in water. Here, acrylic paint creates burrowed trails in rusts, golds, and blues that glow within the background of black enameled wood. Fossil tunnels and the texture of Teredo demonstrate how beauty from millions of years ago can provide a springboard for creativity.