Artist Statement:I am an artist living and working in Madison, Alabama. I came of age in the hills above expansive Jones Valley when my family moved from Mobile to Huntsville in 1956. I spent my days in the woods and fields near our home. My early interest in painting and drawing meshed easily with what I was learning about the natural realms of north Alabama.I spent nearly my entire career as an illustrator, artist and graphic designer. I co-managed and co-founded several Huntsville design studios including Felder&Thames and the Grapheteria cooperative with Brien O’Brien. Brien and I also co-founded the Upstairs Gallery on Washington Street in the mid-1970s. It was very likely Huntsville’s first private outlet for the work of local artistsIn recent years my work has taken on an intent that it did not originally possess: the preservation in images and impressions of the remnants of an outdoors I knew as a child and have enjoyed through the many years since. What I once pursued for its beauty has become my desire for its immortality. I want my paintings to invoke the feeling of staying one step ahead of disappearance. Everything I paint is a real place, seen at a moment. I am not interested in storytelling with my paintings. I show in my works a glance, and instance, an understanding. I believe that the first stroke of a painting is when I tap that brakes on the road or slow down on a trail before taking a picture of sketching the scene that will become my painting. I like to use the word “quotidian” for my work, because despite its lofty sound, it means ordinary, everyday. I look for ways to show you the ordinary world around in what I have learned to see in 75 years, not what I have learned to know. Learning to see is the more difficult of the two. As for techniques, I use a very limited palette almost exclusively. In painting the natural world, I seldom have to add to my standard palette of Titanium White, Cadmium Yellow Medium, Ultramarine Blue and Transparent Iron Oxide. I can mix almost an color found in the outdoors of the southeastern United States with those paints. I seldom have to look beyond that palette. When I do it is usually to introduce something human-made. What I gain is an ability to set up and work expeditiously fast. I have learned all the possible combinations of those four colors and don’t waste time in experimentation to get to a dead match for what I want to see on the canvas An added benefit is, of course, the tight family of color harmony where every color I use contains at least two of the above-mentioned hues, but never more than four. The colors in my paintings are a close-knit family.Contact the gallery at 205-985-7969, or email griffithgallery@bellsouth.net for more information. Contact Griffith Art Gallery at 205-985-7969 or email griffithgallery@bellsouth.net for more information.