Niagara Falls, 28" x 22", mixed media, 1986. Artist's collection.

The paintings which I have made by way of an intuitive process (as is the case here) are very exciting to make, but they can be very difficult to explain in terms of meaning. They are spontaneous and improvisational visual constructs for which pre-thought and over-analyzing at the time of their creation are degenerative forces. I mention this here because this gallery contains a number of works which were brought into being mostly by intuition.

Fourteen years ago I visited the Canadian side (the larger side) of Niagara Falls. I was standing next to the edge of the falls with a few hundred people, and most noticeably, a small group of black-clad Amish people. The women wore a form of head gear--a bonnet--which to my eye resembled a barrel. Most stories involving Niagara Falls and a person in a barrel have to do with the human desire to challenge the awesome power of nature. In this work, the barrel/bonnet represents puritanism--strictly a human invention, and the falls represent the forces of nature--which include human nature and instinct. In general, one could say that this composition is about the visual integration and philosophical interplay of two (extreme) issues: human consciousness--puritanism, and, nature--Niagara Falls.