Visit With Jean

“Although I consider myself a versatile artist, enjoying a wide variety of subjects from portraits to cityscapes, my passion is for pure nature– in the raw and the wilder the better. I’m happiest when I’ve taken some effort to get to the place I’m painting. There is nothing more exciting for me than to hike, snowshoe, or mulepack to remote peaks, hidden canyons, windswept desert outcroppings or the rocky shores where land meets sea.

It’s not just because I’m off the beaten path. That’s part of it, but by spending a few hours hiking through a landscape I’ve experienced that landscape in a way that I wouldn’t have if I’d pulled up in my truck and painted it from the side of the road. I know that place much more intimately. I’m connected to it on a deeper emotional level, and my best work is about that connection, namely having captured in the piece some truth about a particular place at a particular time.

How do I capture this truth? That’s why I paint en plein air. A photograph doesn’t tell me what the breeze felt like on my skin, how it rippled the grass and sounded in the trees, or what the scents were that belonged to that day and place, or how the clouds tumbled and turned, or what the air temperature was. And it certainly doesn’t tell me how I felt after I hiked for miles over rough terrain to get there– how alive I felt at that particular time! All these elements somehow get mixed up with the paint and applied to the canvas.

My goal while doing en plein-air work is to record my immediate and spontaneous response to the scene. I want someone to see and feel what I felt at that particular time; to convey to others my experience and love for a place. If I come even close to this goal, I feel I have accomplished something of worth.”