Turkey Creek

This piece has heavy texture in places. This texture comes from building up heavy layers of paint, which provides a rich history for the piece, not all of which is always visible. The piece is finished with a coat of Liquitex satin varnish and a cold wax rub, both of which help protect the painting over time. The painting has a satin/matte finish. This piece is framed in a white 12"x12" Cardinali Renewal Core Floater Frame that is 3/4" deep. The frame is screwed into small wooden dowels that have been glued to the back of the wood panel. If you want to replace this frame down the road, you can do so by removing the screws from the back and carefully removing the wood panel from the frame. The back of the frame includes a sawtooth hanger and bumpers at the bottom for hanging the piece. A certificate of authenticity is adhered to the back of the piece using archival-quality adhesive.

I painted this intuitive piece using a limited palette of red oxide, yellow ochre, titanium white, and black, similar to the Zorn palette. It started out pure abstract, with patches of each of the different colors. After a while, the middle section started looking like a waterfall, so I nudged it that way. The result was pretty dramatic, then I realized that the right side of the waterfall looked more like a tree line, if I rotated it 90 degrees. After that, it settled into this nice, almost monochromatic nature scene. I also added a small sun/moon into the sky. While I’m more moon energy than sun energy, I usually try to leave it open to the viewer’s interpretation as to whether it’s a sun or moon; I always just call it “sky god” and leave it at that. There’s something special for me when the sun/moon is relatively small in the sky, I really like that.