The Views from Above series involves well over a hundred paintings, drawings, and prints in various formats, sizes, and proportions that evolved from an encounter, years ago, with wet pebbles on the ground. This led to Rocks & Sand (see Rocks & Sand page) lithographs and etchings that satisfied several impulses: the desire to make a totally realistic yet completely non-objective image; to work with a spontaneous, zen-like approach to composition and mark-making; and to derive images strictly from imagination and memory with no photo sources. From rocks and sand through gardens, edges of sidewalks and street gutters to pools and the surfaces and plantings that surround them, these images make metaphor and are about California and how the hand-crafted painted image is created and perceived. The few examples shown here are the most recent in this series. Although shown here as vertical paintings, they can be displayed as horizontal paintings also, with any of the four edges "up". All paintings shown in this selection are 72 x 40 inches.