The “Old Man” runs east from the great divide of the Canadian Rocky Mountains past the Porcupine Hills out onto the plains and eventually into the South Saskatchewan River and ultimately the Hudson Bay. 

Working on location has always been essential for me although “sensory memory” does play an important role on return to the studio.

The work has been underway since November of 2004. I have made numerous, sometimes daily trips and stops on the Old Man River and have explored the headwaters well back into the southern Kananaskis Country. Weather and the seasons, especially late fall, bring dramatic changes to the visual relationships and the emotional interpretation that evolves for me as water levels drop and cooler air envelops the region.  These smaller pieces demonstrate the direction I am taking. Most are 12 or 16 inches square and are the studies for larger studio works presently underway.

 I do move the work back and forth from location to the studio for “throwing  my paint”. As you can see, my methodology includes considerable cutting and separating of imagery for the purpose of “story telling”. This juxtapositional, positive and negative interplay, is an important use of my language elements that you will see have appeared more and more in my work over the last decade. 

My methodology is of working back and forth, between both abstract and what I call “naturalism”. The combination of the two playing one on the other, inspires and then provides resolution for each piece…The visual statement or completed “story” is historically derived from often polarized and/or multilingual visual language and imagery. 

Working in both genres or “switching” is as natural to me as clouds changing in the sky.