Travel leads to education. For any visual artist there are those singular moments of inspiration and connection (like the view from 27,000 ft above the Atlantic) that remain throughout a productive period of painting. The first moment I saw a small pond on the edge of the then not-fully restored Shakertown in Kentucky (Pleasant Hill) in the early 70s I looked down into a watery surface through the brambles hiding the pond and after realizing the water was full of red floating particles I waved my arms to sweep the thicket from my face inadvertantly surprising the goldfish to skatter and move through the water. Fast-forward a few years and realize that seeing city-size oil tankers (remember when they were called "super tankers"?) floating on the Atlantic beneath my jet looking like goldfish shapes....
The view from the train, along the route from Marseilles to Avignon, at L'Estaque completed the imagery for the paintings you will see on this blog (scroll down)...here are a few glimpses of that moment but not quite matching in actual color the intensity of that moment. So now when I gaze into the small koi pool in my garden I see a reflection of a gigantic UPS flight turning overhead on its approach to the hub and runways just twelve miles north in Louisville.
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