This is a valley somewhere in the high desert of California between San Diego and Borrego Springs. It conjured up the days of settlers heading west. Perhaps it is a childhood memory of some Hollywood Western that was shot there?  But, I immediately wanted to mold it in paint. I was there in November, and I think you can feel the airy crispness. The movement of the sweep of land curving back between the two ranges was my focus.  I think this painting has a lot of movement between the shifting colors. For example, the clouds gain in intensity from left to right and the yellow earth shifts in tone from right to left, towards us.

It's funny, but on some art-debate forums a few people have argued that the job of artists is to show social problems. I guess they mean we should show racial hatred, religious intolerance, starving children, and sick people. But I have always thought of art as a beacon, a place that you would like to experience sometime in your life. A place to achieve or to go to. So the idea that artists should expose the world's problems totally runs against the idea of seeing art as something to accomplish. But there is another very important difference: the only way to solve problems and to accomplish things is to have a vision of where you want to go-- if only for a day, an hour, or a lifetime. Art can do that. I think that is awesome. And I think of that when I see and think about this painting.