22″x 30″

oil on paper

I’d been thinking about our precious natural resources and their plunder, which led me to thinking about mining, the important protections to prevent its abuse, squandering and degrading the environment, contrasting with its its possibly thoughtfully sustainable use. This painting started off with a navy sky and was much more brooding and negative, focusing on mismanagement and scarcity. In order to increase the perception that we are looking and a slice of landscape going underground in this painting, I changed the navy sky to this present light colored one. That process ended with me contemplating more appropriate paths forward in the mining theme, defending and utilizing all that is good and pure and beautiful, which includes as well all the metaphors for mining, like digging deep into the self for what is authentic and true.

framed