The Westward Wind Calls

The Westward Wind Calls began along the Salt River in Arizona during a workshop with landscape painter Mark Boedges. It was my first time painting the desert, and the experience changed the direction of my work in ways I could not have anticipated.

That day, the wind swept steadily through the river valley, at one point carrying my painting umbrella into the Salt River. Beyond that immediate experience was something quieter and more lasting: the vastness of the landscape, the luminous desert atmosphere, and colors far richer and more varied than I had imagined. I came home feeling that I had discovered a landscape I wanted to know more deeply.

That feeling has never really left. The same trip took me to Sedona, and in the years since I have returned to paint Arizona and the Big Bend country of West Texas. Again and again, I find myself drawn westward by the open spaces, changing light, distant mountains, and the particular sense of place I first encountered on this trip.

The painting traveled a long way with me as well. What began outdoors beside the Salt River was revisited in the studio as my understanding of painting continued to grow. I wanted to preserve the experience that first drew me to the scene while allowing the painting to become a fuller expression of what I had seen and felt there.

Today, The Westward Wind Calls means more to me than the memory of one windy day in Arizona. It marks the beginning of an ongoing relationship with the landscape of the American Southwest and a direction in my work that I am still following. In that sense, the title has become even more fitting with time. The West called to me that day, and I have been listening ever since.