As an artist I find myself cheerfully playing the role of a storyteller.

The year 1888 was a big year for artists and that is the year the first camera hit the market. This invention freed us from the need to reproduce what we saw and allowed us a new freedom to make the story we tell more personal. To filter our work through… well our creative selves. It’s in that spirit, with that wonderful freedom that I have found myself ‘On the Michigan Wine Trail’ (OTWMT) telling a story, not so much as a reporter, but as an artist. It was with the excitement of learning more and exploring my subjects deeper, that I crawled into a sweet little single engine plane and explored my favorite little slice of America, the peninsulas of Leelanau and Old Mission.

I had in mind a series within the series OTMWT. I wanted what I saw from above to inspire a series of paintings that were very geometric. I wanted to see how the vineyards looked from above so I could filter that new vantage point through creativity and into the paintings.

The photos serve as a reference to jog my memory. This makes the story I am telling my own and not the cameras.

Cheers to art, beauty, and diving into a subject deep and in more detail!

I hope you enjoy!