Art for the Endangered Landscape

I am proud to announce and promote a project called Art for the Endangered Landscape along with the San Luis Valley Ecosystem Council, a grass- roots organization I helped organize 15 years ago as a founding board member.

The crux of the program is to combine art with conservation- definitely not a new idea by any means.
This initial offering is centered around an area in the foothills of the San Juan Mountains in southern Colorado. South of Del Norte along San Francisco Creek an enterprising company based in Texas decided to try to drill an exploratory oil well in the middle of a rural residential area.

The sordid details can be better explored by reading at the San Luis ValleyEcosystem Council website.

We organized a two part event. The first has already occurred which was a paint out day in September. 20 artists gathered and spent the morning taking in the local vistas and starting works.

The second part is an exhibition and sale that features the artwork inspired by the day. The opening of this show will be on Friday, November 30 from 4 to 7 pm at the Adams State University Community Partnerships Gallery and will run until December 20.

For more details on this project I refer you again to the SLV Ecosystem Council’s page on that.

The proceeds from the show will benefit the Council in its vital work in protecting, enhancing and restoring our public lands in the San Luis Valley.

So that’s the bare bones news part.

Below is the plein air piece that I have donated to the SLV Ecosystem council. The drill site will occupy this vista in the lower left center.

"San Francisco Creek Morning" 12 x 16 oil on linen

I want to wander a little bit into the tricky terrain of the land of the Muses.

So what inspires the artist and points them in directions of possibilities?

My formal art education has been extensive. Steeped in intellectual concepts of the classical elements such as composition, line quality and color theory.

I have also honed my sensibilities when I paint to include the energetic resonance to the life force and to imbue some of that into my art. For a more complete explanation you can go to my web page- called Shamanic Luminism.

Many others allude to reverence for our natural systems in their art- mostly in magazines that are geared towards art collectors. Artists espouse how they love nature and try to convey that in their art- that feeling- the emotional content that is usually alluded to by the intellectual approach to art as “brushwork”, or “spatter”-  things that show the result of sentiment and emotion but not the content of that emotion.

Through many associations with landscapes artists, I am sure that many are tuned into intense spiritual communication with the land and its creatures. In some ways the act of painting may be an excuse just to get out into it.

It is about time that reverance for nature be given an equal place at the art discussion table as in " I applaud your use of contrasting tones in this passage here- and you really resonated  the primal rock energy of that butte!"