Wide Open Spaces, Paintings Leave the Studio
- Apr 11
- 3 min read
Paintings are made in the studio, but they are not meant to stay there. Their studio beginning is the start of their movement into the world.
I love the transition from something I saw, just a quick reference photo, to something physical, a piece of art that goes out and finds its place to live.
When painting, I have to constantly step back because it's hard to see the whole painting. The process is about inches and small decisions. But paintings leave and change as they interact with the wider world. They are no longer seen up close or in parts, brushstroke by brushstroke. They are given a wall, a fixed distance, and surroundings. They begin to exist as part of a space. They affect how a room feels over time, not just in the moment they are looked at.
That is the point where a painting stops being something worked on and becomes something lived with.
Wide Open Spaces at the Full Moon Gallery at the Magic Valley Arts Council is one of those moments. These are paintings on their first outing into a bigger community.
The show runs April 10 through May 29, 2026 and focuses on the lives and livelihoods of the American West. It includes work from a number of regional artists.
The paintings I have in this show come from different points over the last several years.
There are four Tetons paintings that were made about four years ago and have not really been shown before. I made them just before my son was born and then didn't have the time or space to show them. They focus on the experience of a place through distance and atmosphere. The Tetons are a widely known and shared place. They are not an unfamiliar landscape but carry memory, travel, and recognition. That changes how a painting of them is seen and felt.
There is also a canyon painting with flowers from that same time. It brings the foreground forward, with more color and structure. It allows the viewer to step closer to the flowers while still holding the distance an
d Western scale of the landscape. This one is from the Snake River Canyon near where I live, based on an early morning walk.
Alongside those are four paintings that started as value studies but moved past that role. These are more recent and reduce the image to structure and light without relying on color. They are part of a shift toward building landscapes that move past representation of place and begin to carry more.
I also included a downtown Twin Falls with birds painting, which moves in a different direction. It introduces the more urban landscape of the American West, and the shared space between human and animal lives.
Seen together, these paintings are not a single series but a cross-section. They show where the work has been and where it is starting to move. These are early entries into different worlds that are starting to take shape.
Installed on the wall, they separate from each other and from the studio. Each one has to hold its own space. Some open outwards into distance. Others hold space closer. That difference is more intentional in the work going forward.
This show marks a point where these paintings move out of the studio and begin that longer, fuller life.
