Cadillac from Schoodic

Mount Cadillac from the Schoodic Peninsula. 9x12 inches, oil on linen mounted to panel.  A reminiscence.

View of Cadillac Mountain

A view of Cadillac Mountain from the rocky shore of the Schoodic Peninsula. 8x10 inches, gouache on mixed media paper.

Craggy Shoreline

My painting has wandered from figures in urban settings to the craggy shoreline of my mind. 9x12 inches, oil on linen.

Pushing and Sinking

So I pushed this painting further along yesterday and today.  I remember standing on this rocky, hard surface without realizing how unstable it appears in retrospect.  If I push any more, I'll be knee-deep in the water. 

Equivocal Edges

A shoreline at Acadia National Park where the rocks dissolve.  The difficulty of distinguishing between water and sky is repeated at the edge of the shore where rocks and water merge.  9x12 inches, oil on panel.

Schoodic Point

In this painting I've placed the single figure, not in an urban setting, but at the edge of the sea.  Actually it's Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park.  The sun, out of view, is going down on the right. 12x16 inches, oil on panel.

Fantastical Landscapes

These two paintings, I am happy to announce, will be included in the exhibition "Fantastical Landscapes and Imaginary Places" at The Bryan Gallery in Jeffersonville, VT. from November 9 to December 23.  They depict different aspects of the wooden path that winds its way around and through the darker and heavily rooted side of Jordon Pond at Acadia National Park in Maine.  Both paintings are 18x24, oil on canvas.

Providing Time

Mindscape: an 18x24 oil on canvas of the wooden pathway that goes around half of Jordan Pond.  I posted a pastel study last week.  A landscape like this for me is a metaphor for the mind.

I've been reading another book on the poet Seamus Heaney (Seamus Heaney's Regions by Richard Rankin Russell), which quotes Heaney, who wrote that "artworks... can slow and even stop frantic activity that characterizes most of the rest of contemporary existence... [because] they provide time for the evaluation of intention and consequence.  Even more significantly, they provide time for those extensions of memory into the past and imagination into the future by means of which our lives acquire their genuinely intersubjective and moral dimension."  Heaney creates landscapes of the mind using words.  I try using paint, though I may be disadvantaged since paint splotches have fewer levels of meaning.

Walking the Planks

A 9x12 pastel sketch of another Jordan Pond plank walk to determine how to embark on a painting of it.  I like the serpentine walk way and the segmented view of the pond, which is only visible as light.

An Interior Space

Jordan Pond is a state of mind, an interior space, where I wander down the wooden path around the pond.  This painting is an 18x24 oil on canvas.

'Study'

This little 6x8 pastel I'll call a 'study' to justify its existence.  It represents a view from the Ocean Path at Acadia National Park but could be anywhere north looking into the sea.

Across The Water

A small 6x8 pastel of a view from Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park.  The sun is going down but still hitting the trees across the water.  The water is rushing in.

Jordan Pond and the Wooden Walkway

In his essay titled "Images" Robert Hass writes that "we all live our lives in the light of primary acts of imagination, images, or sets of images..."  One of my primary images, ever since I visited Jordan Pond ages ago, and probably before, is the wooden path around the west side of the pond.  Below the planks are tree roots spreading across the ground.  Often the pond is not clearly visible, and there are large boulders everywhere.  In this 18x24 oil on canvas painting, I've tried to depict the path as an 'image'.

Rocky Shore

A late afternoon view facing east at Schoodic Point in Acadia National Park, an 18x24 oil on canvas.  Rocky shores are inviting and threatening at the same time.

Looking Over

Another seascape, an 18x24 oil on canvas, of a view from the Ocean Path at Acadia National Park, not too far from the beginning of the path.  I've been to this spot many times, looking over these fierce rocks to the jutting headland, and am always struck by the formal pictorial elements, which form such visual beauty.

Peering

A 12x9 studio pastel of another cliff at Raven's Nest on the Schoodic Peninsula at Acadia National Park.

Simpler

Another view from the Schoodic Peninsula facing east.  I tried to keep this one simpler, an 8x10 pastel.

Precipitous

A 12x9 pastel of one of the precipitous views at Raven's Nest at Schoodic Peninsula in Acadia National Park.

Inlet Outlet

An inlet off the Schoodic Loop Road on the west side of the peninsula just before reaching the right turn for Schoodic Point.  The tide is out.  8x10 pastel.

Sun Struck Shoreline

What appealed to me about this view of the Schoodic Point shoreline was the dark foreground emphasizing the sun struck background.  This is an 8x10 pastel.