Black Hills Artist
Black Hills Artist
The Black Hills is more than a place. Fossils, geologic outcrops, pungent pines and sweeping vistas fuse together into a presence that becomes a part of who you are. It's no wonder there's an artistic force that springs from that presence and lends itself to multi-media expression.
Acrylic on board | 23” x 29” | $2475 | SOLD
During the golden hour, fading light slides the Badlands of western South Dakota into night. The plays of dark and light dance on landforms during sun-and-moon transitions. This ruggedly sculptured land responds to fluvial erosion that creates, destroys, and recasts by transporting deposits of sediments. Jagged buttes, spires, and pinnacles become transient sculptures that build the changing landscape. These landforms within the Badlands have spent 30,000 evolving, in motion toward eternity.
In this painting, pulled from my memory, distant landforms with golden edges reach toward the horizon of a darkening sky. Shadows emerge in distant peaks, while the evasive foreground melts into mounded forms that ease into the abyss. As sculptural reliefs shift, I will be dancing and painting as the silver moon drifts across the sky, replacing the setting sun.
Acrylic on board / silicified wood/opal specimen | 23” x 32” | $950
Fiercely guarding his nest, a red winged blackbird flies to a tree near the heart of a marsh. A cross-section of silicified wood and opal represent the embedded nest in the painting. When I first looked at the rock, my initial comment was, “yes, a nest,” and the painting flowed that theme. The luminous Eocene “nest” dates to 50-million years ago. Acrylic paint creates a blue, misty background and breathes life into the birds. Inked shadows define cattails and enhance textured tree bark.
This painting reflects memories of my thesis, the sights and sounds of which I treasure. A thrilling three-summer dig unearthed Oligocene sediments hosting rhinos, three-toed horses, and camels that had been sight unseen for 30 million years.
While taking a break, I sat silently, breathed deeply, and intensely observed birds alighting on cattails, singing their “conk-la-ree” song. Parental birds kept close watch over hatchlings hosted in the downgradient marsh. Their dedication to the birth and nurturing of their young was the perfect encapsulation of nature’s function.
Batik and acrylic on cloth | 24” x 26” | $670 | SOLD
Riotous colorful fun is inherent within this batik. The process was messy, with no guarantee of my expected result, which felt reminiscent of being alive! I painted repetitive cycles of acrylic and wax on cotton cloth, resulting in concentric explosions of warm against cool. After waxing all the cloth, I twisted the fabric, froze it, then dyed it one more time. This final dye seeped into cracks in the wax, creating the signature webs of a batik. Although I had a composition in my mind, the true image emerged after wax was removed. The creative life of a batik always skips in the direction of spontaneity.
The warm chaotic swirls in “Serenity Arched” slow around the arches. Vertical stability of trees, calming blues, and linear arches firmly nestle in a foundation of retreating rocks.
Acrylic | 22“ x 33” | $850
Water is life! And life in the Black Hills drinks water from the Minnelusa Aquifer. This painting captures the sandstones, carbonates, and evaporites of the 300-million-year-old formation. Outcrops expose the once-hidden interior depicted in buffs, yellows, and rusts. The warmth of the artwork cools underneath, creating contrasting — and yet also balanced — values. Clouded blue skies touch Black Elk Peak as the majestic summit nestles in a stand of ponderosa green.
This painting is the first of my series “Aquifers of the Black Hills.” Gravity pulls rainwater downward through fractures and porous sediments. Minnelusa outcrops provide a glimpse of a major aquifer beneath our feet. The painting overstates the pooling of water flow; however, the Madison Aquifer of the Black Hills holds captured water in cavities, caves, and sinkholes. That acidic water slowly erodes limestone over time, creating dramatic features. The Madison Aquifer is my next challenge in this series of paintings!
Acrylic | 6”x 6” | $285
Acrylic | 6” x 6” | $285
Acrylic | 6” x 6” | $285
Acrylic | 6” x 6” | $285 | SOLD
Simply stepping out of my front door provides a view of Black Hills flora and fauna, one of my favorite painting themes. Rugged granite and colorful Paleozoic outcrops in the Black Hills anchor coniferous and deciduous trees. Trees sink their roots into the rugged terrain, somehow pulling life from rocks and soils. Ponderosa pine is the dominant tree species among the varieties in the Hills. These pines survive for hundreds of years — often in tumultuous conditions — providing valuable insights into historical climate and natural events.
Batik | 20” x 29.5” | $1400
A feeling within builds as the fall sunlight on birches captures the day’s warmth and quietly enters the cool of sunset. As leaves flicker in yellow and orange they touch a lavender sky that is host to vibrant green. Life is rooted in the dark and unknown earth.
Batik was the chosen medium for this artwork. The nature of batik results in fractured lines and unexpected spontaneous colors capturing the moment of reveal.
Mixed media | 10” X 6.5” | $125 | SOLD
The Badlands beckon and soul-marked time transpires as the moon rises to caress rugged forms. Buttes and spires formed by depositional processes about 75-million years. Erosion of sediments by wind and water began about 500,000 -years ago. The forms we see today will continue to change as geologic processes continue to infinity. Layering of acrylics and ink builds a life-long moonlit memory.
Batik with mixed media | 21” x 36” | $1400
The bond of spring and green foliage continues to fill our consciousness through summer. Fall colors emerge as green chlorophyll pigments in leaves reabsorb, visually gifting warmth to foliage. The dance of vibrant colors flourish during the magic of sunrise and sunset.
The medium of batik enhances color transparency and brilliancy. Paint-filled fractures and crackling of wax on canvas extends branches toward the sky while shadowed tree roots extend strongholds into the earth.
Acrylic | 11” x 22” | $350
Vibrant orange and blackened veins of monarch wings glow against blue skies. Painted butterflies move softly in shining flight and enter a rambled abyss of extinction.
Monarch migratory patterns withstand harsh conditions from breeding grounds of North America to hibernation in Mexico. The monarch’s food supply diminishes as plants are suppressed from toxic herbicide application. Movement within this painting relays a fragile mantra “save the monarch.”
Batik | 19" x 33" | SOLD
Often our emotions are entangled with the change of seasons, our feelings twisting in the wind, dampened in the rain, and rising with the sun. In this piece, batik — a wax-dying technique — captures the vibrant color continuum of life between spring and fall. The tree trunk emerges on the canvas through minimal pencil strokes. Burst of hues from the acrylic paint were painted on the canvas then covered with wax. After the canvas was completely waxed, it was crinkled allowing pigment to enter fractures created in the wax. Ironing the canvas allowed vivid colors and shapes to appear that were once conceal with wax.