"Tree Overhanging Stream"; 2004, oil on canvas, 40" x 52"

    This is the first in a series of slightly romanticized views of the old Bethlehem Steelworks in Steelton, PA. Overgrown, less-used and unmanicured, the still functioning enterprise   (twice-leased, somewhat depressed, and no longer American) leaves stoic reminders of the incredible wealth, imagination, and power that came from these buildings. The stories of pay, lifestyles and the abstract sensations of the lives of locals who were around in those days and saw fit to tell me about it, are alive in my mind as I wander through this process of revisiting a tempered version of those unassuming jumbles of rust, brick and weeds.

       This is the first in a series of paintings of the PA Turnpike. I took them on the way back from dropping Andrea's daughter off @ Indiana University of Pennsylvania. There is, to me, a very post-impressionist feel to this work. A few months ago I had been watching a documentary on A&E Classroom very early one morning about the lives of Van Gogh and his peers and it apparently stuck with me as a recent artistic influence. Especially I think because of the similarity in subject matter. Farmland is something I've always wanted to paint and have little experience with. My memory and recent experience helped complete this, my first exploration into these uncharted waters of a long-awaited vision.

     "PA TURNPIKE #4" is an odd scene from the modern Pennsylvanian landscape depicting a strange dichotomy in the natural topography supported by the composition as well as the weather conditions of the particular day I took the picture in the fall of 2008. I painted the electrical station and wires running across the front with a rough, imposing motion. This imposing motion highlights the station, with the cloud-cover supporting this feeling, by breaking just at that point where the station sits on the mountain-side and leaving the wires and trees in the foreground brilliantly lit by direct sunlight. The background is shadowed by the clouds and causes the interesting, rainbow-like color transition, from the bottom to the top of the piece. The electric station seems to impose on the landscape as I painted it because of our nation's new interest in "green" technology. When it was built it was probably described in this light as a "shining jewel" of progress. In this new "green" modern perspective, it may be described as destructive of a large swath of the mountainside foliage. When lit as it is, it burns darkly, a scarring reminder of the wasteful, arrogant destruction, lack of creative discipline and environmental consideration in our methods used in technological development of the existing power grid. In this painting I was fascinated by this composition and the beauty of the subject matter. The composition and supporting symbolism celebrates the beauty of the Pennsylvania landscape as it appears at the time it represents. It is a typical scene one might see driving along the Pennsylvania Turnpike across the unfathomably beautiful State of Pennsylvania. Please take a ride, see it for yourself, and perhaps you'll see this very sight. Take a picture and interpret it in your own way.

    As I work part-time in the evenings @ the Art Association of Harrisburg, every day I experience this beautiful view on my way across the bridge. This day was a particularly beautiful sunset in the spring. I quickly dug about in my pants-pocket where my phone usually is, to snap a few pics before I made it the length of the bridge. I wanted to capture and dramatize the sunset as it contrasted and back-lit the Capitol. I painted the profile with a straight-edge. Although the sharp contrast of the lights and darks in this piece are a common tendency in my work, sharp Sign-Painter's lines which I used along the horizon and edges of the columns, are not. This is most obvious with the SUV, on the right, in the foreground. I could not resist the brushy, painterly style for very long and as I strained against it for most of the painting- when it came time for the most prominent element to be added- my reaction to my own discipline was vehemently exposed.