The Wayfarer: Crossing Point marks a pivotal moment of departure and renewal, created in the wake of John McCaskill’s move from Alameda, California, to Kona, Hawaiʻi,

This encaustic painting captures the complexity of letting go: of place, of profession, and of deep-rooted connections with colleagues and friends. Built up in molten layers of wax and pigment, the surface holds memory like sediment—its texture both concealing and revealing what lies beneath. Faint forms and shifting transparencies evoke the uncertainty and beauty of transition, where past and future blur in a field of lived emotion.

Here, McCaskill channels his philosophy of wayfaring—moving forward with intuition as compass, rather than a fixed destination. The Wayfarer: Crossing Point is not a record of arrival, but a meditation on the act of transition itself. Within the tension of burn and bloom, loss and emergence, the painting becomes a personal map—one acknowledging the weight of departure while opening space for transformation and renewal.