Artist’s Statement   Rectilinear -  48 x 36 inches, acrylic and paper on canvas	Each time I travel across the country, by air or car, I’m struck by the physical and demographic changes that have occurred since my last journey.  Cities spread out over farm lands and pave over rivers and small creeks, small towns wither and die, agri-business takes over family farms eliminating homes and small communities, leaving only old foundation lines of houses and a few outbuildings.  And the great ribbons of asphalt snake across plains, through forests and over mountains.  Our roadmaps are constantly being updated to accommodate the changes.  Informative as they are, these maps can only give us a few surface features, distances, and a general sense of the condition of the routes marked out on them in coloured inks.  They don’t tell us what and who has gone before.  It is the land itself that holds these secrets as centuries roll forward laying down layers of changing habitation and vegetation.  This layering of textures and physical change fascinates me.  My hope in these works is to express the process of change, decay and growth by building layers of paint, paper, and texture on the canvas, abrading some, deleting others, or leaving a hint of previous layers showing through.  Limiting my palette to the same three hues, yellow oxide, red iron oxide and anthraquinone blue, forces me to focus on these changes and textures(although, in a few cases, a second blue or yellow has been added for vibrancy)  The roadmaps are there in each painting as underlay.  It isn’t necessary for them to be visible – only to act as jumping off places for the paintings.  Because, after all, it is the diversions to side roads and small lanes that provide us with moments to observe, wonder and dream.  The major routes are merely conveniences of time.
Down East -  24 x 36 inches,  acrylic and paper on canvas
Laurentians -  24 x 36 inches, acrylic and paper  on canvas