Reflections in Muddy Water No. 024

paint, resin on wood panel

72 x48 x 2

It is a place where the wind blows and you can smell the chicken houses or jasmine, depending on where you are standing. Where roads are named after families long gone, either buried in the old cemetery or moved on to bigger and better things. The paved byways snake through pastures full of grazing cattle, meander among homes that harken back to a bygone era, and pass yards full of shirtless children riding bicycles in circles.

Pine thickets and giant oak trees provide the borders between single-family neighborhoods and trailer parks. The once-proud Highway 41 is lined by wild grass, cigarette butts, and broken hubcaps. Vagrants wander throughout the day and night, their purpose unknown and destination unclear. Sometimes, you can see their shadows moving in the night or materialize in your headlights and disappear in your brake lights as you pass them. There is a bemused sadness on their faces, as if they know something terrible but are afraid to share it.

from Brad Stephens’ “Reflections in Muddy Water”

Grit No. 002

plaster, paint, encaustic on wood panel

42 x 76 x 1.5

After a fall, before a cry or a word, there is often a pause, when dirty and scuffed, the world is quiet except for our breath. There is peace in that moment, even as pain sets in and sweat makes mud on dusty knees – the peace of being caught by the rough cradle of the earth, and in taking some of it with us as we push up and carry on.