Truth in Advertising
18"x14"
Pastel on paper
(All sizes are approximate and exclude frame, where applicable.)
Artist's Statement
I was born and raised in the Texas Panhandle, so the colors, the trees (or lack of), the wind, the extremes of the area were just part of my growing up. I spent summers as a teen working for my dad. He was a crop duster. I would spend hours standing around on a dirt road in the middle of nowhere, doing nothing but waiting, waiting and looking, looking at fields, cattle, clouds, trucks, old buildings and plants. Studying, killing time, and listening for the sound of a spray plane heading back.
Maybe it was those years of killing time that helped me focus.
I’ve always been a good artist. Not bragging. I stunk at everything else, but I could do art. Couldn’t do math, or write, but I loved art. My mom was an artist, too. I would look through her art books and was always drawn to the Impressionists. How they could capture an essence - a moment of time - with a looseness and carefree feel. It was pure genius to me.
Now combine all that with the fact that I am an impatient person. I don’t want to wait for paint to dry. Give me a stick of beautiful pigment and a sandy piece of paper and get out of the way! Maybe I’ll do a picture of a rusty truck in the middle of nowhere, a door falling off its hinges on an empty farm house, some rocks, some cattle. I’ll be killing time doing what I love