New Migration Crossing Composition: Underdrawing

A look at the underdrawing on canvas of my new migration crossing composition, scaled up from my smaller working drawing. The concept is “order within chaos”: depicting the crush of bodies, the atmosphere of dust, and the repeating motifs encountered at water’s edge at a Great Migration Mara River crossing…

You can get a more accurate sense of scale when I stand next to it. This piece measures 32 x 60″, linen mounted on panel (one of 14 such works currently in the studio). Now to begin the color ebauche underpainting: a thin wash of the basic color palette that I will use for the opaque layers of the painting…

Sketching wildebeest bones, Masai Mara, Kenya

Sketching on the windswept Masai Mara plains has been an absorbing challenge. I am fascinated by the various stages– or taphonomy–of decay and decomposition of animal bones and carcasses on the plain (and how they sometimes by chance become fossilized). Bleaching bones are an integral, everyday part of the landscape here in the Mara, telling stories of lives lost and of life carrying on in one of the most magnificent places on earth. The hunt, the kill, feasting predators, lively scavengers, and finally lonely bones left to tell the tale: all stages of this process of life, death, and renewal are endlessly fascinating to observe.

Lioness Reflection Completed/Featured In Wildlife Art Journal

The completed Lioness Reflection painting recently appeared in a Serengeti Day  installment of Wildlife Art Journal protesting the proposed commercial highway through the Serengeti National Park. My accompanying statement:

“I observed this lioness one afternoon close to my small campsite in the northern reaches of the Serengeti, near Bologonja. She had just made a careful, but ultimately failed attempt to ambush a young wildebeest that had strayed from the edge of the Great Migration. Lions fail far more often than they kill, but something about her posture–an attitude that I worked to convey in my painting–tells me just how much of a survivor she is. She may fail time and again, but she’ll keep trying until she provides for herself, her cubs, her pride. That’s just one of the things about lions that I find so inspiring.

Painting this lioness in the studio day to day transported me back to the Serengeti– and to the emotions that I experienced when I was immersed in one of the few places where one can get a clear idea of what the earth must have been like during the Golden Age of Mammals. I divide my field work these days between two Serengetis: East Africa’s–the last great stronghold of the world’s megafauna– and the lost ecosystem of the American Great Plains, where bison once roamed in herds that were perhaps the greatest ever known to man. I recently stood on a hilltop in the midst of the western Kansas prairie, looking across a landscape completely empty of the vast numbers of large mammals that had roamed there until the mid-nineteenth century, just a moment ago in geologic time.

The proposed Serengeti Highway threatens to reduce the great plains of East Africa to a land just as empty and just as haunted by what might have been. America’s vast herds were lost before they could even be studied and understood, destroyed by men who did not appreciate the value of the natural world beyond their own blind and momentary greed. Today, we know better. This lioness cannot pause to reflect upon the future of her world– she can only work to feed herself. It is up to us to ensure that short-sighted greed will not prevail again. We must stand together to protect the Serengeti for present and future generations– and for the wild creatures that still call its majestic horizons home. “

This piece is now in the collection of Mrs. Jackie West Cowden.

Rosamond Carr: Love and Courage In The Heart of Africa

With Rosamond Carr at her home at Gisenyi, Rwanda, not far from the Congolese border on the shore of Lake Kivu.

Rosamond Carr first arrived in Rwanda in 1949– and soon fell in love with the land and its people. Her memoir Land of a Thousand Hills: My Life In Rwanda is essential reading for those interested in this part of Africa. A friend to Dian Fossey, Mrs. Carr was portrayed by the actress Julie Harris in the film Gorillas In The Mist. Shortly after the 1994 genocide in Rwanda–and at the age of 82- she founded the Imbabazi Orphanage at Mugongo Plantation, which has subsequently saved hundreds of Rwandan children from a life on the streets. The orphanage was temporarily relocated to Gisenyi following continued political instability in the wake of the horrors of 1994, but was moved back to Mugongo in late 2005.

Mrs. Carr was 93 years old when this photo was taken in October 2005. She passed away close to a year later in September 2006 and was buried at her beloved Mugongo. She was without a doubt one of the most fascinating, loving, and courageous people that I have ever met. RIP, Mrs. Carr– you made a difference in the world and touched countless lives. You are missed, but will never be forgotten.

“Rwanda is my home, and it is here that I intend to spend the rest of my days. Its beauty is my inspiration. Its struggles have been my struggles. Its grief has been my deepest sorrow. Its people are my strength, and its children are my greatest joy.”
~ Excerpt from Land of a Thousand Hills

Atop Lookout Hill, Masai Mara National Reserve, Kenya

Although gathering photographic reference–especially of animals in motion– is of paramount concern while on safari, the chance to sit and sketch offers multiple rewards. Doing so forces me to slow down, encourages me to become more attuned to my surroundings, and, most importantly, helps me to identify interesting shapes, patterns, and motifs everywhere around me. A single sketch completed in the field is indelible– much like writing something down is an aid to memory. I treasure the opportunity to field sketch in Africa, particularly in the Masai Mara in Kenya. The Mara is a combination of very seductive elements– wide-open landscapes, the migration crossings at the Mara River, the abundance of big cats–that make it an incomparable field of exploration for the artist.

Sketching in the wild: this is uhuru, this is freedom. Just to sit and be still long enough to allow the senses–especially the eye– to awaken…this is when you begin to notice the miniature worlds underfoot, the brown lark in the grass, the textures of ancient rock, the subtle shadings of the atmosphere on a clear and brilliant day…

Ngare Sero: Place of Dappled Water

Kilimanjaro from the air– taken as I was arriving on a late afternoon flight from Nairobi to Arusha, Tanzania. First stop before the long drive to Serengeti: a relaxing weekend at the Ngare Sero Mountain Lodge on the slopes of Mt. Meru.

Fireplace at Ngare Sero, a former German farm during the colonial era– now one of my favorite getaways in East Africa. The food, staff, accommodations: all superb and highly recommended. The lodge only has ten rooms, ensuring that every guest gets plenty of personal attention.

Bougainvillea just outside the door of my garden cottage. Thousands of blooms and huge old trees– home to troops of Syke’s monkeys and the Kilimanjaro race of black and white colobus–are everywhere at Ngare Sero. The name means ” Place of Dappled Water” in Masai.

The dining room/main building of the lodge as it appears today.

The same building when it served as a farmhouse during the German colonial period at the turn of the 20th century.

German settlers at Ngare Sero farm, early 20th century

Male Scarlet-chested Sunbird (Nectarinia senegalensis) feeding in the gardens. Over 200 species of birds have been identified on the grounds of Ngare Sero.

Black and white colobus, part of a troop feeding in flowering jacaranda trees on the lodge grounds. The Kilimanjaro race seen here has the longest coat and thickest tail of any colobus. More of my wildlife shots can be seen on the lodge website: http://www.ngare-sero-lodge.com/Lodge_tour.htm

Just beyond the gate of the lodge grounds– a path leading to a local village. These women have come to the springs in the vicinity of the lodge to collect water.

View of lodge from the bottom of the steps that lead down to the water’s edge.

Lion of Judah Update

Great news: my life-size Lion of Judah painting has found a home in the art collection of a true lover of lions. It is always a fantastic feeling to meet someone who appreciates my work enough to want to live with it for years to come. I’m very happy that she appreciated the meaning of the painting and decided to add it to her collection. I look forward to seeing it hanging in her beautiful home.

This painting represents my attempt to create a symbolic, rather than actual, lion. Throughout human history the lion has served as an icon of both royal and supernatural power. In ancient Egypt the dual lion gods of Yesterday and Tomorrow protected the afterlife. The Nubian Kingdom of Kush venerated the all-powerful lion god Apedemek. In the Bible Jesus is called the Lion of Judah, a title also given to Haile Selassie, Emperor of Ethiopia. As an artist I find it fascinating to explore the lion’s deep hold upon the human psyche. This particular painting began when I encountered a lion with a natural cross or sword-like marking on his forehead– and evolved from there as I learned more about the lion’s role as a powerful symbol through the ages. While lions have served as temple guardians, talismans, and heraldic emblems of strength for centuries, today they are fast disappearing in the wild. Who now will act as the lion’s guardian?