‍

Life is ephemeral. Nothing lasts, not youth, not travel, not the things you buy. Instead, what we carry forward with us are the vibrant, fluid snapshots of life, the moments that matter. For me, it’s memories of growing up poor, of going into work with my mother at the bowling alley. The expansive textures of the wheat blowing across Montana plains.

Quite unexpectedly, life has taken me far from the rural landscapes of my childhood. Korea, Mexico, France, Italy and Spain. Landscapes upon landscapes that end up in my art, like geologic eras. In that sense, I sometimes feel I am an artist of fossils, unearthing visual memory.

This particular series draws on the times that I’ve found myself in the Spanish city of Cádiz. It’s a port town, perhaps the oldest in Europe, and its streets are all sea breezes and flowers, all curves and blooms of color. White sandy beaches envelop the city’s inky black seawalls. It’s a city awash in the blue of sea and sky, in sunlight and the texture of salt.

Back home in my studio, I was a little surprised to find these shapes and these colors so perfectly duplicated in the dried ink and flaking paint of an old notebook. With the help of my studio lights and a macro lens, I set about reconstructing that lost summer, its undulating shores and sandy beaches, to carry that moment forward and handing it off to you, the viewer.