Some subjects are never exhausted.  We focus on different details – the patterns of bark, the contrasts of light, the texture of fur.  I believe that if you become familiar with even a part of a place, its details, you have in some way touched it all and that the whole is an expansion of its smallest components.

The Animal Paintings

Although animals most frequently regard eye contact as a sign of aggression, we associate gazing into a creature’s eyes as some mysterious, magical connectedness with its inner reality, its soul.  Yet even when we capture, study, or tame these wild beings, the essence of their lives remains a mystery.  Perhaps there is an ancient bond that explains our attraction to wildlife.  We don’t have to justify an animal’s existence by its usefulness to us.  Its right to exist comes from that shared bond. As Art Wolfe puts it, “Conservation is not, ultimately, about saving this species or that one.  It is about saving the process, power, and mystery of creation…everyone alive is an environmentalist.  Some realize it, and some don’t.”