Western Jaunt was a title I found in Whitman. I always worried a bit using it as it sounds a little casual.
But the feelings were so heavy at the time, as the Anne Plumb Gallery closed in SoHo and art moved on to Chelsea.
I was asked to teach in California and I took off. I had my paint and started to paint along the road.
I visited most of the National Parks and found I liked the feeling that would come over me of "Wow, I have to paint that!
I blew up the plein air paintings in my studio and they became more abstract, simplifying the shape and color.
My figure was easily super imposed and I thought of it in terms of eighties overlay. I still thought of Greek Vases and how contemporary they were. The landscape becomes very positive in the negative shapes of the flattened figures.
I sent some pictures around and Tony Shafrazi who I had worked for in the Keith Haring days really liked them. We had a show of them the next September.
This painting below was painted on the spot at Yosemite. I then later made a large version in Brooklyn.
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