Artist's Statement
It is my hope that my work forces you, as it forces me, to pay closer attention to a natural landscape that may seem commonplace – the far-from-virgin forests of northern Maine. One reason that I concentrate so much on this subject is my belief that a century from now global warming will have removed from our state the fir, spruce, and cedar that now seem so typical.
The dark underpainting and minute detail are expressions of my vision. The former suggests mystery, and the latter, the fact that in the natural world we may never be able to distinguish what is from what is not finally important.
A strong sense of place underlies this work. The scenes depicted here pay particular reverence to a unique natural area, the 1857 acres of public land – cedar swamps, black spruce bogs, and open peatland – surrounding Salmon Brook Lake in the central Aroostook town of Perham.