Here is a new small piece ongoing in the studio. It is about 12 x 16".
Dein warst mein Herz. Oil on canvas, 2013.
Work in progress...
Sometimes a piece takes a long, long time to resolve. Below is the painting Our Place, Our Time in two iterations, the later one moving to resolution, I hope.... fresh from the studio today. The painting is 54 x 60".
Here is the newest version of the painting, done perhaps.
Above is the next version.
This is the slightly older version.
The Big Bang Theory
There has been a lot of ongoing buzz about my painting The Wisdom of Birds since it has been on the television show "The Big Bang Theory". I haven't seen the show, and work of mine has been in other television show (like ER) and movies, but this piece has seemed to cause a stir. I would consider making limited reproductions available since there has been so much interest. Contact me if you are interested.
An Owl Story
I had been having many "encounters" with hawks and owls for awhile, probably very average kinds of contact, but these seemed of special import to me. While I was walking or running in the hills or elsewhere, I would sense something, look up and find an owl hovering just above me (at least once then to witness the owl alight next to me on a ledge and copulate with its mate).
In the mid 1980's I was at the Ucross Foundation in Wyoming on a residency, and these encounters were continuing there. One night after dinner as I was in my studio painting, a violent thunderstorm swept in off the slope of the nearby mountains. Lightening was striking everywhere, traveling horizontally inches above the ground. The power in the studio, which was in a converted barn, had been knocked out, so after several hours of sitting in the dark I decided I would try to return to the converted school house that was our residence (not a wise decision had I great concern for my own well being). The schoolhouse was a quarter-mile distant across pasture, rough ground, with livestock grazing, including several large bulls (separated from each other by fence line). Crossing this pasture in the dark night with the violent storm raging was out of the question, so I resolved to run the long driveway and county road instead-- a mile long journey, but I had been running a lot, and knew I could cover the ground quickly. Perhaps unwisely, but perhaps also with a fatalism that was not unknown to me, I took off.
The corn in the fields all around had been recently harvested; so surrounding me was only the remaining stubble. I was the tallest thing about, less than ideal conditions for a mad dash through a lightening storm. As I ran I stopped at each cattle guard and waited for a lightening strike so I could see the bars and pick my way across.
Soon I rounded the corner of the schoolhouse, which stood in a grove of cottonwood trees. As I did I sensed a presence nearby. I looked slightly up to my left, and when lightening next struck I saw a great horned owl gliding along next to me just above my shoulder. This bird flew with me until I neared the door of the house. Probably affected by the storm it was simply checking me out, but to me this bird had seen me safely home.
I resolved then somehow to get involved more with these birds. Upon returning to the Bay Area I began working with the study of the hawk migration in California.
Thoreau - Reconsidered
Dan Gottsegen has been influenced by a series of writers who trace their lineage to Thoreau, including Wendell Berry, Aldo Leopold and most notably the work of Gary Synder who has had a profound effect on this artist. Thoreau's commitment to walking as a articulated in the essay "Walking" connects to the artist's own lifelong practice. An avid hiker and naturalist his paintings weave together images from still photography and video. The images in the larger painting link his experiences exploring the landscapes of Northern California and New England. A Winter Walk slips together views that recall Thoreau's descriptions of his winter explorations. Gottsegen develops a composition that allows for combining and compressing different moments, in the way that the mind wanders when walking in the woods.
Dan Gottsegen focuses on landscape and nature based on his own experience of diverse landscapes. For instance his expertise handling raptors led to a series of paintings about hawk migration while he was affiliated with the Golden Gate Raptor Observatory in California's Marin Headlands. Recent solo exhibitions have been presented at The Feick Art Center, Green Mountain College, Poultney, VT; Karpeles Museum, Santa Barbara, CA; Sylvia Perkins Gallery, Striar Jewish Community Center, Stoughton, MA; and the Parker Gallery, Whistler House Museum of Art, Lowell, MA. He has recently commissioned for the South Burlington, VT Art in City Center's Gateway Public Art Project. He is a recipient of a University Teaching Excellence Award, University of Massachusetts, Lowell, MA; and a Faculty Development Grant from the California College of Arts and Crafts. Gottsegen earned his BA from Brown University, Providence, RI and his MFA from California College of Arts, Oakland & San Francisco, CA.
The Peace of the Wild Things
When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.
— Wendell Berry