Artist’s Statement
In the ’70s and ’80s, I did a number of works that explored human-made landscapes: quarries, earthworks, expressway on-ramps, and the like. I explored a lot of locations in the Northport, Maine area, where I summer, for plein-air painting locations. At the time, I was doing a lot of pastels on paper because of the ease of transporting a fairly large surface to work on (no wet oil paint to smear while transporting the work!) and the fact that the medium was quick: a concern when the light changes a lot in a couple of hours.
This work was done in a sandpit south of Belfast, Maine, where sand and gravel were being dug for construction and road projects. I was not only interested in the human-made topography, but also—à propos of this exhibit—the tire tracks in the soft sand and earth, a kind of human-made drawing on the surface of the landscape.