Nancy's Place, Reflection (oil, 16 x 12) was painted on site at an estate in Loudoun County during a plein air weekend with local artist and teacher Ed Cooper. It reflects my fascination with water in all its forms. This received an Honorable Mention in the League of Reston Artists April 2008 show at the Reston Community Center.

This was included in the League Painting and Poem show at the U. of Phoenix, October 2008. Here is Dean's poem, written for this painting:

Nancy's Place, Reflection

House, lawn, trees, lake, reflection
of the above and reflected sky
(real sky cut off at top of painting).
The reflection gets the sky. Is that why
the house seems ignorant of its image?

The real painted house stands stout,
oblivious in its solidity.
It's lake-rippled image, like
the start of a movie flashback
or dream sequence, seems aware
of its source, sneaking up on it
from underneath or haunting it
or simply lurking there, smug in its
hidden sky - but aware. After all,
reflections reflect, and what we call
"the unconscious" always gets mistaken
for profundity.

The breaking up that puts it in past
or future opens up vision.
Solidities must thaw to permit vision.
But the upright house is, itself,
loosely painted, simplified, if not rippled.
It is perhaps more aware of us
then we of it. Our world is blinded
with itself.

Thus the dissolution of paint lets us see
and artist seeing us. The artist,
invisible, has become only the pungency
of awareness, like the eye's remembrance
of an onion peeled to nothing.

We have more sky than either the house
or its reflection. What are we
doing with it? I mean, what are we
being with it?