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DISAPPEARING MARSHLANDS Artist’s Thoughts About this Series of Paintings:
A love of water has always been a major source of inspiration and a recurring theme in my artwork. With its swamps, marshes, bayous, lakes and coastlines, my adopted home of Louisiana offers a wealth of waterways to explore and paint. The marshes have always had a particular fascination for me. I witnessed firsthand the disappearance of the islands where we once enjoyed fishing and watching the wildlife and birds. This led to the discovery of how gravely endangered the area has become and created an urgency within me to capture the beauty of the marshes on paper before they completely vanished. There is a quiet solitude here that is contradicted with an underlying edge of excitement of teeming wildlife, fowl, and fish. The grasses, with their multitudinous textures and colors, are like a patchwork quilt. The water, ever-changing from smooth as glass, with mirror-like reflections, to choppy waves with patterns working around the islands, is a constant challenge to capture the myriad colors and textures. The clouds in Louisiana are a constant delight for any landscape artist. The variety of shapes and colors makes a perfect backdrop for any painting.
My intention is to try to document and convey to the viewer a sense of appreciation of the beauty of the marshes and the harmony which must exist between man and nature in order for both to survive. Hopefully, my paintings will provide a heightened awareness of the urgency for restoration of the marsh before the destruction is irreversible." (Note: This was written before Katrina......a wake-up call for the nation that the survival of our wetlands ultimately affects the whole country.) |
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