Some kind keen mind saw fit to make this comparison while my work was hanging at the GRAM.  Given my passion for the history of landscape  painting  this poster was a pleasure for me to discover one day as I was visiting my work in the museum.  It was hard to explain, however, to the casual visitor who reads too quickly that Thomas Cole was not my contemporary collaborator but rather an artist who lived now in my imagination and whose work can be found in many museums including the GRAM.   There were also those who were certain my photograph of the Alaska Pipeline shot very close to the Beaufort seacoast was the same landscape as that portrayed in Thomas Cole's work on the Hudson Valley.    These encounters made me want to return to the Hudson, however, and so I have  and with camera in hand and I am in love all over again with yet another river.  This will be a winter of rivers for me:  The Hudson in late November, the Mississippi in early December and a beautiful little river in Ontario I don't yet know the name of this coming January.

Close to 200,000 people passed through the exhibit in just three weeks, which was as wonderful as it was overwhelming.  On the final Sunday the carbon monoxide sensors at the museum sounded an alarm and the guards blocked the entrance and did not allow more people to enter until the oxygen returned to the air!  An amazing experience given that art was at the center of the crush.  I loved my experience of that show and the fantastic company I was allowed to keep.  Thank you GRAM.