Interstate Bridge, Froelick Gallery, December 2007

In order to unify a show of work done in a variety of media, I focused on a very specific part of the Portland landscape: during my most recent visit to Portland, I spent many days walking over and around the Interstate Bridge.

On summer mornings, there’s a marked contrast between the visual and tactile experiences of walking across a bridge that is part of an interstate highway: clear skies and crisp shadows and high distant views, traffic noise and constant rough vibration underfoot.

Monoprints and graphite drawings on blue paper, largely monochromatic and low-contrast, are a venture into a different medium and also serve as studies focusing on the structural elements of the bridge. I let the resulting geometry and texture in the bridge studies suggest the color and mood of the sky and landscapes in the dye paintings.