The Father's Land, The Son's Land

House paint, soft pastel on wood

My father was an architect, and as a high-schooler in the late sixties, he was active in several fine art media--especially pottery, drawing, and painting. In 2005, when I purchased my grandparents' home, there was a ton of clutter in their attic that had to be gone through. During that process, I found one of my father's old paintings. I nearly threw it away because it was in such horrible condition, but on the way to the trash can, I realized that I could remove the dilapidated canvas from its wood stretcher and reuse it for my own work.

Now, fifty years since he built the stretcher, and twenty years since his death, here is the painting I did on his old stretcher, living in the home he grew up in, cultivating the land on which he played. If you view this painting in augmented reality (visit this page on a current-generation phone and click the augmented reality button that will display beneath the painting), you can turn the painting around, examine the back of the piece, and see close-up details of the stretcher my father assembled with his own hands.

This piece is presently my most deliberate attempt to-date to use my color-field methods to create an abstracted landscape. I wanted the title to draw on this hidden reality that what was once his surface to paint on became my surface to paint on; what was his home to make art in is now my home to make art in, what was his land to contemplate and cultivate is now my land to contemplate and cultivate.