Dear Subscriber:

Three items this time.

Art of the State

State Museum of Pennsylvania, Harrisburg

My painting titled GH Old-Growth Forest (below) is on display in the State Museum of Pennsylvania’s prestigious annual juried exhibition Art of the State. It is accompanied by 95 artworks chosen from 2,200 entries. The exhibition runs from September 8 through January 5, 2025.

GH Old-Growth Forest, 36 x 74 inches, oil on linen, 2024

Focusing on old-growth forests

The old-growth forest painting in the State exhibition brings me to a related topic. Since a young age, I have been fortunate to wander into several virgin (unlogged) forests in the western U.S. More rare in the east, only less than 1% of the original forest still survives, and tracts of uncut forests are much more difficult to find here. I was in my early thirties in 1992 when I stepped into Big Reed Forest Reserve, just five years after The Nature Conservancy in Maine acquired it. Big Reed is New England’s largest contiguous forest to have survived undisturbed for hundreds of years. I painted many of TNC’s preserves, but Big Reed was sort of a crown jewel. Crossing into the land, I had the clear sense of entering an extraordinary, timeless place. A dense weave of ancient and younger trees, mosses, and other flora and fauna created a delicate harmony never shattered by heavy footprints, roads or chainsaws. Below is a painting from that time and place.

Ancient Birch, Big Reed Forest Reserve, 40 x 30 inches, oil on canvas, 1992-96

I have always loved experiencing and painting these rare remnants of nature, lands granted free rein to live and develop entirely naturally. Because of that, for the last couple years I have focused on ancient forests of the eastern half of the U.S. as my primary subject. I will write more about this when the paintings are unveiled in my two 2025 solo exhibitions (Gross McCleaf Gallery/Philadelphia/May and Groveland Gallery/Minneapolis/September).

If you wish to know more about this topic, Old-Growth Forest Network is doing a terrific job of creating a national network of old-growth forests.

A new gouaches book in the works

Before Christmas, a new book of my gouache paintings (the little guys) will be published. Compared to my prior book of gouache paintings, this one will have 50% more pages (about 200) and paintings (about 150), and will measure slightly larger, easily accommodating full-size reproductions of these small paintings. The Intimate Landscape will feature new paintings finished after that prior book, Gouaches, went to press in 2006. Barbara L. Jones, Curator Emerita at Westmoreland Museum of American Art, contributes the foreword.

Watch for details on discount pre-orders, in an upcoming newsletter.

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-Thomas