"Around the Bend" Acrylic on custom 28x39x2 birch panel. $1590.00 (SOLD)
My dad loved to take the "scenic route" anywhere we were going. In the days before GPS and cellphones, he could sell it to mom as a "short cut" that he knew. It was his way of turning a routine drive into an adventure, discovering again and again what was around the next bend in the road... and often the creek or river we were following. I was thinking of him as I painted this knowing that he may well have seen this vista on one of his many trips to the Big Bend area of Texas. This painting is inspired by Boquillas Canyon which rises as much as 7000 feet above the Rio Grande in places...almost 2000 feet more than the Grand Canyon!
Leaving the known for the unknown is the spirit of adventure. It brings us out of our routine into the land of the new, different, expansive and free. We learn, explore, grow and are renewed by beauty, mystery, wonder and even worship. It takes some faith, some "gumption" as dad like to call it and some "wasted time" to let go of the known and jump across to the unknown. In the end, the real "waste" is not exploring what's around the next bend!