“Untitled (chairs)” is a story of mystery. As I continue to document and investigate the local landscape I stumbled across this natural still life. It couldn’t have been a better opportunity to document. My initial thoughts are always why are these chairs here and how long will they be here until they deteriorate naturally in their own element. One would imagine that they we’re just tossed aside but with further inquiry you can clearly see and that one of the chairs is upside down in the tree. Why?

 A few months later I had the opportunity to finally paint this and wanted it include this mystery behind it. And as I often do I went back to the site and was enlightened by a rugged man and his pickup truck right in front of the still life.

 It couldn’t have been a more serendipitous moment knowing that I was in the middle of painting this piece and stumbling upon him. What I learned was why the chairs were there. He has been meeting his friends in this remote location, tucked away 200 yards from one of our busiest streets, with at least 50,000 cars per day zooming by, and no one would even know this existed. He meets his friends here to play cards and dominoes because “the dominos don’t blow away” and more than likely have a few beers, and shoot the s***. Orso is where the story goes. But he has been coming here for over 35 years, rich with knowledge of the landscapes that I love to include in most of my work. As to what will come of this land at least we were able to peek a little into the past and can only speculate the future, keeping the mystery intact.