Into the Valley (1995) – At West End Gallery
There was a long hard time when I kept far from me the remembrance of what I had thrown away when I was quite ignorant of its worth.
–Charles Dickens, David Copperfield (1850)
The painting at the top is another early piece that is going to be included in the Little Gems exhibit opening at the West End Gallery this coming Friday, February 6. This painting, Into the Valley, has a direct connection to the Little Gems show of 1995, which was the first such exhibit for the gallery as well as the first public showing of my work.
Painted on February 4, 1995, this was the first work produced after I had attended the opening of the show the night before, on February 3. In the painting diary I kept at the time there was no mention of the night before. I was a bit surprised that there was no mention of the opening since it had an immediate effect on me. But after looking at the diary a little more, I wasn’t so surprised. It included mainly simple direct information about each piece such as the date, title, the type of paper used (I was working solely on paper at that point), and some notes on the piece. These notes sometimes pertained to the paints I was using as well as my first impressions of the painting.
Here’s the entry for this painting what will be from 31 years ago in just two days:
Lovely piece, good greens, interesting sky and eye-intriguing shape. I like it, at this moment. Fabriano is exquisite.
It’s a short entry but it gives me a world of pertinent info. Mainly, it tells me that my first impression of it was very positive, but I wasn’t totally confident in my own opinion of it. Some things never change. It was this hesitation in my judgment that probably kept this painting in a box for the past three decades.
My first impression of Into the Valley as I wrote then was right on the money. It is a lovely piece. It does have good greens and its sky is interesting and its shapes are eye-intriguing. And the Fabriano paper that I was just working with for the first time around then was and is exquisite.
Looking at it now, I realize that I made a mistake in not freeing this little guy long ago. I hope that it gets to have a long life of the appreciation it due.
A little side note. I stopped using this painting diary at the end of 1995. My entries for the time after that are regrettably even less informational. But I am thrilled in having these notes for the earliest works. Reading recently, I noticed that I seldom went beyond this terse format in my painting diary. One interesting except was an entry a few weeks before I painted Into the Valley.
It came on January 17, 1995. I don’t remember much about the painting from this entry except that it was renamed Teasdale which I remember did find a new home later in the year. I don’t think I even have an image of that painting or, if I do, it is lost in a jumble of poorly shot slides from that time.
But the painting is not the interesting thing here for me.
More importantly, this short entry came from the day I took my work stuffed willy nilly into man old blue milk carton out to the West End Gallery. That was the day when all kinds of new horizons opened for me that I hadn’t even dared to imagine before that day. Here’s what I wrote after that meeting with Tom and Linda Gardner at the West End:
A good day… I floated all day. It now seems like such a restrained understatement for what I was feeling on that day and for what it came to mean for my future.
This probably gives you an idea why I have such deep appreciation and fond feelings about the Little Gems show. It is an integral part of my career, the point of departure for my artistic path. Without that day in January back in 1995 and that first opening a few weeks later, I have no idea where I might be now. The only thing I can say for certain is that I could not be any more content wherever I might have ended up.
When I see new artists, especially the younger ones, show for the first time at the West End, or any gallery for that matter, I look at them closely, knowing how excited and hopeful they must be. I can only hope they use the opportunity to find a path forward that is as satisfying for themselves as mine has been for me.
I’ve said it before, but I owe so much to Tom and Linda Gardner for that opportunity, that good day back in January of 1995. Thank you, Linda. Thank you, Tom. Thanks to you both, I still find myself floating.
The 32nd annual Little Gems opens Friday, February 6, 2026, with an Opening Reception that runs from 5-7:30 PM. Hope to see you there.
Redtree Times 