From Joy to Devastation

When I was a child, I would wander the beach at low tide. I went looking for the small, self-contained worlds in the tide pools. It was glorious — the infinite variety of small creatures purposefully going about their business. The water amplified the color of glowing stones and shells through the light that danced on the surface of pool. That was my definition of joy.

This painting, “The Boneyard,” is a personal definition of desolation, my way of trying to articulate a devastating and senseless event. What had been alive is dead, dissolved into skeletal remains.  I used oil sticks, oil paint and cold wax, and added scratched in outlines of what were the ruined homes of sea animals, shells.  

Above, the living kelp flows on in an unstoppable current.