Artist Statement

I paint portraits.................................of old buildings. Throughout a lifelong career in architecture, my most enduring passion has been historic preservation. I fell in love with old buildings: I enjoy seeing them, walking
through them, touching them, researching their history, restoring them, and hopefully contributing to their longevity.

I work in watercolor, pen and ink, and gouache to paint well-known dwellings of early ancestors, street scenes of little-known small towns, and ramshackle barns or shacks in fields that now grow only tumbleweed.

Old buildings tell a story. Their cracked adobe walls, sagging rooflines, and tilting porches are like wrinkles on a face, inviting us into the past, learning about who resided there. Surrounding the buildings is the landscape: sky, trees, vegetation, water, snow, sunlight, and sometimes a deserted broken-down pickup truck. The building and its landscape are intertwined; both are necessary to the finished portrait.

Watercolor painting is a continuous learning process. Egg tempera is on my list of new ventures to learn and try. Developing my painting skills is as rewarding and fun as creating the portrait of a building. Photos (from my travels or from history) often provide inspiration for a new project.

My paintings are portraits. A shaft of sunlight glancing off a windowsill is a twinkle in the eye; gnarled knots on a crumbling wood wall, just scars and signs of aging. History occupying space in a new time.

Contact Ron at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 
Concho Adobe

 
Mora Barn

Paros Greek Konstantinos

Taos Snow

The Butterfield Trail

The Red Window