The title of this piece ("coming from the north") is taken from the description of a vision near the beginning of the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Ezekiel 1:4). The storm with which that vision begins always brings to my mind the blue northers I experienced growing up on the high plains of the Texas Panhandle, and this is what was on my mind as I created this painting. It begins with three "primaries" (blue, yellow, and red) that come together as water, brush, knife, and the qualities of the wood itself carry pigment across the surface, “imitating Nature," as John Cage said, “in her manner of operation," a dance, full of surprises. A blue norther is that kind of dance, purple blue almost black under blue gray clouds rising over (and bleeding into) the yellow and red of dry grass that flows into the color and grain of the birch (which is, fittingly, a traditional surface for religious icons).