I spent my High School years from 85-87 at Ridgefield High School. I remember my art instructor at the time was Mrs. Kent. In class we would experiment with all sorts of media and I fell for the precision of the ink pen. I have created over 30 works since I began to place ink on paper in the late 80’s. Now 20 years later I’m asked to invest my artistic talents to brighten a plain wooden stool for a local project. I gladly accept. Unfortunately I find out quickly that the precision of an ink pen will not work on this lonely little stool. Yes, I would need to use acrylic paint. What you see in this stool are my graphic artist intentions painted in reference to Overlook Park. This is my 1st full painting in over 20 years.

The black line work pattern is in each and every work of mine. It defines the path of the image. For this project I chose to add 4 colors within the line work. This is in reference to every color seen in the Refuge throughout the year. Instead of painting every color imaginable I utilized the 3 primary colors Blue, Red, and Yellow because those are the basis for all other color. The Purple is personally significant to me because it is my daughter’s favorite color and she is my only seed. Everything beautiful in this refuge starts with a single seed. My wife Sarah then glued jewels to the purple. This is to signify a treasure that should be preserved as an asset for the future. The Red and Yellow are used together to represent the day and the Blue and Purple the night. The jewels are as the stars would be as I saw them years ago on quiet walks through the darkness. I used the spiral pattern to define DNA and how everything is linked.

The sun is our Solar Energy and it is located at the center of everything. The drips along the side are as the rain that falls in the Pacific Northwest.

I spent the first week of this project just staring at a primed wooden stool. I had no idea the creative variety one has as a painter. Colors running together, uneven line work, brush strokes that can be seen!!! It drove me nuts. My confidence in acrylic painting was obsolete at the start of this project.

Now……..I have a few ideas.

All ten stools donated for this project are shown below: