11-Year Sampling
October 2026
You may already know how much I love geology. So let’s focus on a “sampling” of paintings. Not dirt, minerals, water, or sediments, but paintings. I was curious to look closer at this because the pieces I’m currently working on, the stacked belts and cliffs, reminded me of earlier works and I wanted to see how they relate, side by side, to each other. This selection of works were painted over 11 years between 2014 - 2025.
Images left to right: Purple Dusk, 2014; Sunset Mountain, 2018; Lofty Heights, 2019; Canyon Sky 1, 2024, Three Summer Belts, 2025
There is a thread between all of these paintings, other than the subject matter. These are my observations:
The use of flat color to block out or create silhouettes. In the earlier works, the flat colors were in the landscape verses the sky.
Since moving to NM, the landscape has more to share, to say, and rumbles under my feet which translates to more texture. I was a visitor for years, but now living here nearly eight years, the mountainscapes are active and lively in my paintings. I am reminded everyday that this planet is moving, reshaping, and things are changing beneath our feet.
The cutting in and out of the landscape. In the two paintings on the right, the ridge lines skip and dip along the sky and the edges of the canyon leaves a chasm towards the sky. Whereas the early works, the cutting goes along the surface and inward or down.
Lines. I see lines throughout these works. Some are sublte, bold, or elegant.
There is an illusion of depth and height with the flat surfaces.
The last point is the most interesting to me because it strikes a cord. Oy! There is more to me than my outward cheerful mindset. Those feelings are authentic and genuine yet there is a deeper side to me that I escape to and share slowly. There is a push/pull of introvert and extrovert, open and guarded, and, lastly, independent and collaborative. I have toggled with these over the years in my daily life. Perhaps we all do in our own ways. I love the duality and exploring both sides equally. And I love paintings mountains!