This painting is one of those pieces that somehow found its way back to the studio after making the rounds at several galleries. I’m not always surprised when one does make its way back to me but this one kind of surprised me. There’s just a lot that I like about this painting. So I will enjoy it for a while longer for myself. Here’s what I wrote about it a few years back.
Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.
-Helen Keller
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Who can speak more about optimism than Helen Keller?
I still struggle to get my mind around how she persevered to overcome blindness and deafness. Such a remarkable thing. It makes me question my own strength of character, makes me wonder how I would respond if similar circumstances. I wonder how well known her life’s story is to the younger generation, outside of the tale of her early years with the woman, Anne Sullivan, who taught her how to join the world as portrayed in the play and movie, The Miracle Worker. That drama, while marvelous in itself, doesn’t reveal the great influence that Helen Keller had through her life as an activist and inspirational speaker. She is a pretty amazing case, to say the least.
That brings me to this little piece, a new 12″ by 12″ canvas that I call Passing Clouds. There’s a lot of joy, a lot of bright-eyed optimism in this painting, both in the process of painting it and in the final product. It’s one of those pieces that I truly enjoyed every moment that I worked on it and never felt a twinge of doubt about the strength or validity of it. It felt in rhythm with the first brushstroke and every subsequent move was made with complete confidence. That’s a rare thing. Usually there is a struggle at some point. But occasionally things come together and a painting like this flows out with complete ease.
No, there are no clouds hanging over this one. Just floating by…
I wanted to include a version of Irving Berlin‘s classic song Blue Skies, one of my favorites. But as I searched I came across this different song with the same title from Tom Waits. I had forgotten this song that I hadn’t heard in many years but it immediately came back to me. Just a lovely small song, perfect for a lovely small painting.
I said to my soul, be still and wait without hope, for hope would be hope for the wrong thing; wait without love, for love would be love of the wrong thing; there is yet faith, but the faith and the love are all in the waiting. Wait without thought, for you are not ready for thought: So the darkness shall be the light, and the stillness the dancing. 
I guess most people would classify me as a landscape painter and it would be hard to dispute that statement. After all, most of my work does use the lines and forms of the landscape as its basis.
The privilege of a lifetime is being who you are.
The works must be conceived with fire in the soul but executed with clinical coolness.
There are two ways of looking at my paintings for me. During the process, I view it as an assemblage of parts, a series of decisions to be made and obstacles to overcome. It feels very much like it is part of me at that point, like I hold all the cards and determine where it will go and what it will inevitably be. I feel a bit like a mechanic or a surgeon in that time.
Never doubt that a small number of dedicated people can change the world; indeed it is the only thing that ever has.
I have just three things to teach: simplicity, patience, compassion. These three are your greatest treasures.
Introspection, or ‘sitting in the silence,’ is an unscientific way of trying to force apart the mind and senses, tied together by the life force. The contemplative mind, attempting its return to divinity, is constantly dragged back toward the senses by the life currents.
It is through gratitude for the present moment that the spiritual dimension of life opens up.
Redtree Times 