The phrase \u201cin the middle of nowhere\u201d is sometimes used to describe the place where I grew up\u2013Nebraska. I\u2019ve heard people say how boring it is to drive from, say, western Pennsylvania to eastern Colorado. I guess those people would be from \u201cthe middle of somewhere\u201d\u2013places with mountains, oceans, forests\u2013the stuff of traditional landscape painting.\u00a0 But after years of looking at, photographing and drawing the Midwestern landscape, I find that \u201cnowhere\u201d has a lot to offer.<\/p>

The Midwestern landscape taught me a lot about seeing\u2014maybe because its terrain is the bare bones of landscape\u2014no mountains, oceans, etc.\u00a0 It has broad expanses of both sky and land\u2014and one can see where they actually meet at an unobscured horizon. It offers views with opposing components\u2013for instance, an isolated tree close to a much larger shape\u2013a triangle of receding highway\u2026a wedge of brown earth jutting in to a snow covered field\u2026blue sky punctuated with poles and wires\u2026brightly colored geometric signs amid more subdued surroundings.<\/p>

I\u2019ve lived in the Northeast for a number of years now and I tend to see its landscape on the same terms.\u00a0 Although this is a beautiful part of this country, beauty is not what moves me to take a photograph\u2026rather it\u2019s when I come upon a landscape that startles and intrigues me\u2013a view in which things\u2013shapes, colors, textures, light and shadow\u2013have come together at the moment in a way that I haven\u2019t seen before. It is a landscape that has potential for a drawing that I want to make and then share with others.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t