I started this painting in June of 2010. It was a landscape that felt unfinished a devoid of any interest. I left it in that state in my studio for over a year now. Then, Thangs drawing reminded me of living in the orchids just. 42 miles South-West of the North face of Mount St. Helen's when it blew! I was a small child playing outside in the blackberry bushes. I noticed suddenly all the birds quit chirping, a deadly silence filled the air and, I could the traffic three miles away down on the highway! It scared me. I ran back to our apartment house. As I was running, I crested the hill by our apartment where the creek cut across the orchard. A huge explosion went off. It sounded like an atomic bomb! Then, I saw it. Mount St. Helen's with a looming mushroom cloud that glowed as it went screaming into the sky. The lightening not even a half hour later in that cloud of ash and debris was amazing.
Around that time in my life, I was forced to attend pre-school on a military base where my father worked. The Cold War was still "on" so, we had regular "bomb drills". I was happily colouring at my desk when I was told to crawl under my desk. I asked, "why?!" I was told it was a bomb drill and our "best chance of survival should we get nuked is under your desk!"
I was almost five years old. My father, an electrical engineer by trade that worked around nuclear equipment, and I, had stayed up late on night watching some PBS program on the Philadelphia Project. I frequently asked a lot of questions at that age as children tend to do. My parents frequently gave me the non-watered down not PG-13 answers.
If your five years old when you watch an atomic bomb testing video where houses are being blown apart- you know no amount of hiding under your desk is going to save you! So of course, I protested and told my entire class how "dumb" they really were! I refused to take part and kept sitting at my desk colouring!
At five, just outside of Seattle, I decided if I'm going out of this world I'm doing it while making art! That was the same month Mount St. Helen's blew. If earthquakes, flooding or, volcanos- all of which I saw that year, had the real power to kill me- bombs were the least of my concerns.
I was thinking about this as I walked through my studio to find a photograph I took of a Monet painting in the National Gallery for Thang. I saw the landscape painting sitting there. I picked it up, stared at it and proceeded to paint one of the first blimps to drop the Atomic bombs during the early testing phases from a still of that video I watched with my dad. Art comes out of visual and emotional association!
I included a detail photo!
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