River Arc: Moons, 8in. x 4in., oil on panel, 2010
Not long after I came to teach at Principia College, I observed an exceptional environmental event in landscape that would affirm my being in this place. It was a marvelous incident that occurred out on the end of a bluff. On balmy evenings many of the campus bluffs were occupied by small groups of student friends, watching the setting sun and taking in the twilight. I found myself many times, at the close of day, perched on one of those warm limestone platforms. Being out there just before the summer solstice, the sun was setting into the low western hills above Grafton, at the upper terminus of the Mississippi, before the river turns north and out of sight. Looking downriver as the sun dipped, a broad full moon was simultaneously ascending in the east - something that nearly took my breath away… the dreamy incident of two full orbs, their shafts of color streaming toward each other along the course of a calm and great river. A private moment of wonder, a sacred memory, and only eight years later did it occur to me that the tale might best be told through painting.
