The Artist

For over fifty years, Michael has been fortunate to live in the mountains of Colorado, each year more profoundly enthralled by the natural world. Most of Michael’s paintings pursue that magic, reflecting time-honored schools of landscape painting.

Occasionally, Michael experimented with paintings that accentuated the sinuous shapes in nature; some obvious, others obscure. Since early 2019, and more so during the covid isolation, he explored this idea more deeply, which is reflected in his Fluid Landscapes paintings. Early twentieth-century Canadian painters, Emily Carr and Franklin Carmichael inspired Michael to expand his work in this area — now his primary focus.

Despite the apparent serenity and immutability of Michael’s landscapes, the viewer may detect the feeling, as the artist clearly does, that these beloved scenes are fragile and in jeopardy. Michael has been an advocate for these places for his entire adult life.

Michael’s primary subjects are Western Colorado and Southeast Utah. He paints his smaller pieces on site. Larger landscapes are based on his outside sketches. He works primarily in oil. Supports include stretched canvas, board, canvas on board, burlap, and wallboard mud with sand.

Michael has lived in the Roaring Fork valley of Colorado since 1970. He is a conflict-resolution practitioner and facilitator, was a county commissioner from ’75 to ’85, and worked for Rocky Mountain Institute from ’83 to 2016.