Father's Day at Snyder's Framed Print

After 30 years of living and teaching art in Norwood, Colorado, I happened to have the good fortune of teaching a watercolor class attended by one of the daughters of an old time sheep ranching family. The family invited my wife, Vicki, and me to their annual Father's Day Picnic, about 5 miles from the 'Cone' mountain. This painting is a composite of parts and pieces of a number of photos I took that day. And the food was country good! Country Home Celebration, family warmth, hospitality, wonder of nature are some of the emotions I expressed here. What does it make you think of? What kinds of feelings?

When I had the pleasure of interviewing Jackson Ordean, he began by telling me he grew up barefoot and shirtless in a small art colony town on the beach..." pungent salt and seaweed smells up my nose and the natural 'music' in my ears of foamy water flowing over gravelly sand. It was all a crystal clear world without words. People spoke 'at' me in staccato sounds I didn't really understand, but I abstractly saw each facial expression and their moving mouths... I was in my own world of feelings and pictures...that was all I knew that was real and true at the time." He shared that at some point near the end of High School,"...my 'left' verbal brain finally turned on, and joined my 'right' visual brain... and it was as if someone had...