a Painting in Nigeria

I just got an email from an aide to the U.S. ambassador to Nigeria, Terence McCulley, of him standing in front of my painting at his residence in Abuja. I have three paintings there as part of the State Departments "Art in Embassies" program. Sort of a strange arrangement but kind of cool too. You submit your work to the program and ambassadors get to look through the submissions for things they'd like to display during their tenure. Apparently Mr. McCulley is from Oregon.

U.S. Ambassador to Nigeria Terence McCulley with "Commute"

Opening on Thursday

The paintings are ready. Not sure if I am.

Last of the new work

This piece was started at Playa but only finished last week. Up over a small rise across the Highway 31 from the Playa facilities was a couple of cargo containers and a field of various construction materials left over from their remodel a few years ago. I would go up there pretty regularly. It was a nice view and I found the semi-industrial feel of it, isolated amidst the vast landscape, oddly comforting.
I haven't quite decided on the title yet.

42" x 42"  oil on canvas

Northbound

This a "pre-playa-residency" painting that kind of prefigures what I did there. It's based on a snapshot I took while driving up to Seattle late last fall and painted sometime in January I think.

"Northbound"  oil on canvas  26"h x 51"w

The Brady House

"LA Story" (the Brady House)  oil on canvas  48"w x 36"h

This has been hanging from my rafters for a while. I don't even remember when exactly it was finished but it germinated after my trip to LA last summer in a fruitless effort to talk to galleries.

Hovel

This is not actually a hovel as you can probably tell but rather a root cellar on the property at Playa (where I had my 4 week residency). This is the first painting I did there. I wasn't quite ready to deal with all of the open space, so I surrounded the structure with my more familiar trees. While it was just a root cellar I thought it seemed sort of an inviting metaphor for my retreat. I wanted to isolate and bury myself in my work. I later learned an amusing anecdote. The original owner of the property built the root cellar and used it to cook the first meth in Oregon. Go figure.

"Hovel"  oil on canvas  34" x 50"

Two more oil paintings

"En Route"  49"w x 36"h  oil on canvas

"Witness"  36"w x 50"h  oil on canvas

Two more pieces stretched and photographed thanks to my sister-in-lay Beth who kept the kids all day last Friday. Thanks Beth! Both of these were done at Playa.

"En Route" is kind of a portrait of route 31 which runs right by the residency program. I used to walk out there most nights and wait for cars to go by. Everything would be silent... then in the distance you hear a slight hum. A new light begins to flood the hillside and suddenly the car roars past. In no time the red glow of the tail lights was fades into the night and the silence returns. When they fly past at 70mph it felt a little like seeing into the future from some distant past.

"Witness" is simply a document of one of the thousands of dead trees left over from a fire that raged across Winter Ridge in 2002. They were eerily beautiful.