Full Moon Rise on the Table Country 2015

Mark Maggiori made this painting, Full Moon Rise on the Table Country, with oil on canvas. It really makes me wonder about the conversations that artists have with each other, across time, across places. You get a strong sense of a big open space; it's quiet but it's also humming with all this stuff going on! Imagine Maggiori there with his easel, really looking, taking it all in. There’s the horse, this powerful animal; the cowboy, silhouetted against this big, almost eerie moon. And, of course, that vast canyon landscape, painted with a soft light that makes the edges kind of dreamy. It’s clear he's not just showing us a scene but also trying to capture the feeling of being there, of being small in a huge, dramatic space. I wonder what other painters he was looking at to capture that kind of light and mood. It’s an ongoing exchange, this painting thing. We all borrow from each other, we all try to make something new.