Taos

Taos, New Mexico    oil pastel    11" X 14"

In 1993 I moved from the hot and humid Gulf Coast of Texas, to the high desert of northern New Mexico. The changes in locale dramaticly affected my work. I was visually overwhelmed by the vast horizons, the distant snow-capped mountains and the immediate red earth and clay that surrounded me. The new visual stimulusaffected my paintings and drawings in many ways, pushing me strongly into the world of plein aire painting and abstraction from nature. Previously, my works had been abstract pieces done in a studio. Sometimes, I would mix figures and primitve landscapes into the work, but for the most part the paintings were created from an interior world. Only rarely did I venture outdoors to sketch. All that changed when I experienced the endless vistas of the land of enchantment. From then on I would continue to develop my work in a more realistic mode.