Man Carrying Buckets of Water, 2022
30” x 40” screenprint

My inspiration for this print began with a childhood memory…

“When I was a kid, we had a Japanese scroll painting hanging up by our front door. When the door was opened the scroll would “disappear”.

I often looked at the scroll and tried to understand what it meant? The visual narrative tells a story of an old man carrying heavy buckets of water to the top of a mountain and his rustic home.

Taking it all in, the scroll was 16” x 60” vertical with fabric borders on top and bottom. There were 3 stages between proximity and the vast unreal. Beyond the winding, cascading, streams, bowing trees, massive rocks, and humpback mountains is a phenomenological value of walking endless miles, only to turn around and do it again. Distance and necessity are point A to point B.

Within the visual serenity of green vapor foliage, misty gray clouds, and vast, boundless distances were the simple question; at what point would you give up exhausting or futility?

The Zen response is an ever impossible challenge that begins with the first step forward.”