Behrer Woods 9x24" study

Intending to get to this years ago when I snapped a series of views at my friends John and Carole Behrer's land near Rhineland, Missouri, I have finally created a little study that I think has promise for a larger version. It was tempting to include a little crooked man with a little crooked cane, but instead I think I'll emphasize the geometry of the right angles of the trees against the softness of the rolling shapes beyond. I think it satisfies because of the monochromatic nature of the season. I'm looking forward to getting to a size that challenges...

Augusta Bottoms Consort 16x24" painting

Depicting a wonderful October day in Treloar, Missouri, friends Michael,Gloria, Rebecca and Paul making up Augusta Bottoms Consort, play their original music to benefit the Katy Land Trust. The KLT hosted an unveiling of the Treloar grain elevator murals kicking off their purpose; to promote the idea of land preservation along the Katy Trail. There, under the shade of a huge cottonwood tree, the breeze blew softly and the music flowed rhythmically while friends and admirers chatted. Couldn't have been any better.

Taos Powwow, "Women Record Their Men" 24x36" painting

The 24x36" painting depicts a scene my daughter and I witnessed on a trip to Taos, New Mexico where Native American women recorded their men in a sacred drum circle. It will be included in a show of southwest subjects at American Legacy Gallery in Kansas City for the month of November.

"Legends of St Albans" mural series - painting 2

"German Settlement (The Murder of John Ridenhaur)" 50x34" - is the second in a series of paintings/murals for the historic Studio of St Albans, the original castle-like 1920's residence of the Johnson family. The current owner has commissioned the series to tell stories of the area gleaned from the book, "St Albans, the History of a Missouri River Town" by the late Lucie F. Huger. The painting depicts John Ridenhaur, the last "white man" killed by Indians in Franklin County in 1813. He repeatedly declined to sell his magnificent horse to the Osage, some of the braves wanting to give the horse as a gift to their chief.

Danforth Plant Science Center - Discover

The final of four 32x60" paintings to hang in the permanent collection of the Danforth Plant Science Center, "Discover" depicts the Greek goddess of the harvest Demeter: "She bids summon joyful torches of new discoveries come forth and scatter the shades of gloom in radiant light, and strews garlands before her," symbolizing photosynthesis and biofuels research. Her daughter Persephone, wife of Hades; “traveled down into darkness and gloom, but because all things fall back into the earth and also arise from the earth, Persephone represents the seed of Mankind that was hidden away, but also being of a bounteous mind, it is for Man’s health she sends a rich increase of various fruits from Earth," symbolizing plant research which could lead to new sources of medications for use against conditions such as chronic pain and cancer.

Installation of the Arch mural

Here is an in-progress shot of the mural being installed. It will greet visitors at the ticketing area below the Arch.

Resolution Copper Mine - trade show mural artwork

This 18x60" painting was commissioned by Parks&Co in Phoenix, AZ for Resolution Copper Mine's trade show mural project. It came through my rep in NY, Bernstein&Andriulli and is an 18x60" painting on canvas. It will be digitally enlarged to a 21 foot width for their use. From the first contact e-mail, to the finished product delivery was 10 days.

"Above the Beyond" 30x40" painting

To be installed at the Missouri Botanical Garden's - Best of Missouri Painters Show October 1st

Gateway Arch mural painting completed.

The final 34x60" painting is finished and has been approved. It now will be digitally enlarged to the full 15x27 foot size and printed on fabric to be installed in the Jefferson Memorial Expansion Museum behind the new ticketing area. This will greet visitors with an overall view of the Arch grounds and a taste of history right - an 1850's levee scene, and left - a 1965 Arch construction scene.

Taos Powwow, "Women Record Their Men"

Creating this preliminary color sketch from reference and memories collected from a trip to Taos, New Mexico last summer, I hope to proceed to a large painting this summer. While attending an All Nations Powwow below Taos Mountain on tribal lands as invited "guests" my daughter and I witnessed women recording their men in a drum circle by using their cell phones. While tradition is all around, in costume, in the fact that women are not allowed in the drum circle, the twenty first century is there too in glowing cell phones.

The Katy Land Trust - billboard design

 Here is the most recent design of a series of billboards using my paintings that will be installed mural size on the sides of grain elevators along the Katy Trail to promote the Katy Land Trust.

Final painting: "Co-Evolution" 40x80"

Just completed and to be unveiled Sunday April 17th for the permanent collection of the Missouri Botanical Garden: “The Co-Evolution of Pollinators and Evening Primrose” commemorates the broad sweep of contributions made by Dr. Peter Raven to the Missouri Botanical Garden and the world. The work derives from a quote by Dr. Raven himself, “...to master the diversity of living organisms and use the properties of those organisms as a kind of palette to build sustainability”: A profusion of diversity aligns on the equatorial regions of the world below the dome of the Botanical Garden, while in the center pollinators create a vertical axis, dividing on the left a suggestion of the Japanese garden that balances on the right, Dr. Raven’s 25 years of research in China. Overlaying the composition are swirls of Raven’s Manzanita and clarkia franciscana, and curves of chemistry and biology book-ended by hands of the viewer suggest our responsibility and the fragility of life on Earth.

The first impression of the painting should be of boundless energy, like that of Dr. Raven, organized by an Art Deco influence favored by the Ravens...

The painting will hang in the entrance vestibule of the Schaumburg Auditorium.

"Orphans of Perryville" - 40x60" commissioned painting.

Just finished, this large painting was commissioned by Timothy Drone (portrayed second from right), to place his neighbor orphaned brothers Dalton and Justin (center), in a 1940's church picnic setting in hometown Perryville, MO. The boys were adopted and are being raised by their grandparents Gary and Norma (depicted far left and center respectively), and are cherished by the Drone's and their community. In the painting Mr. Drone looks over blueprints of a home he is building while chatting with stone mason Jim Brown suggesting a size for stone steps. Gary is the owner of a heating and cooling business, while family friends, Kim and Mary (depicted holding the mules in the middle distance and delivering pie to the table), fill out the boys circle of "family".

Gateway Arch ticket booth mural project / update

The latest round of sketches presented to The National Park Service and PGAV Architectural firm have morphed into the Arch construction scene on the left and a St Louis levee scene on the right, both reduced in scale making more room for the center "map" of the Arch grounds, contained now in a rectangle with foreground figures interrupting and overlaying the corners. The map will include the Illinois side of the river and westward to City Garden. I await a bit more reference photographs of the Arch construction and then I promised to have for the clients a final sketch, and color rendering. At that point they should release me to begin the 53x60" painting, due by the first of May.

"Hills Beyond" painting just finished...

This painting, just finished, is a private commission by a couple for their master bedroom. It measures 32x84" and was a landscape suggested by them.

Foundry Art Centre poster

Commissioned some years ago by an art group restoring a WW2 foundry on the Missouri River in St. Charles, MO, the sketch was developed into the color study but never saw the light of day due to lack of resources. My flat-files in the studio are overflowing with undeveloped pieces that maybe I can bring out and dust off...

Kauffman Foundation "Kansas City" Mural

This is a crude "in progress" digital capture of the mural as it stands - about 50% completed. It is a 8x32 foot mural to be installed at the Kauffman Foundations HQ in Kansas City. It will lead the visitor through a large entrance area into a meeting room that will have a second mural on the subject of Kauffman and the World. That second mural will measure 7x80 feet.