A painting can capture the essence of a place better than anything else. The artist strips details that don’t matter down to the bare mood, the feel, the emotions, the inner core of a moment, getting at what the 19th century English poet Gerard Manley Hopkins calls “inscape,” a person, place or object’s unique inner nature. The medieval theologian John Duns Scotus called the particular, one-of-a-kind essence of a person, place or things its “thisness.”
I’m excited about my upcoming art show at Sunnyshore Studio that opens Saturday, November 6, called Impressions of Camano. In it I will shares new paintings of a place I love: Camano Island. Some of them are painted from my imagination, mind and heart and hands trying to recreate a place, or a feel of a place I know and loved. Others are recreated from photographs I’ve taken over the years of my wanderings and meanderings of the island.
None of them catch the full “inscape” or “thisness” of a place, but I’m reaching, trying, and I’ve very much enjoyed painting places I love.
In this painting, I try to capture the feel of Mabana’s cliffs glowing at sunset.
In this one, I aimed to get the feel of the sun burning through the mist at the overlook on the south end of the Island.
I took a photograph of these barns on the newly made Stanwood Levee trail at twilight. I’m really happy with how I was able to put on paper the mood of that moment.
I expect to have 30-40 new watercolors paintings, some framed, some matted, and some just raw watercolor paper at my Impressions of Camano show coming in November. The show opens at Sunnyshore Studio (2803 SE Camano Drive, Camano Island, WA) on Saturday, November 6, 10am-5pm. It runs a second Saturday, November 13, 10am-5pm. During the week it is open by appointment. Please call me at 317.209.6768. I hope that you will take time to stop by in person to see my Impressions of Camano. You can also view the show online from November 6-13 at our gallery here: https://sunnyshorestudio.com/gallery-2/
