Mountain Melody by Mark Keathley

One of my passions is exploring the high country in Colorado where we recently purchased a home  just north of Durango.  I can, literally, get lost for hours going down trails or roads just trying to find a vantage point where "it all comes together."  I liken my desire for the perfect spot  to our desire to hear good music.  When a band or orchestra is "together" and balanced, where the harmonies are perfect and the music is soothing or inspirational, it stirs the soul and moves you inwardly bringing emotional release - even  a sense of worship and awe. As you know in the music world, a moment like that is rare, and when it happens, you want to soak it up and take it in.  We want the sound to wash over us and make us feel more alive.  In visual art, much like music,  I  strive to pull everything together in a balanced yet dramatic, rhythmic but steady,  soft here then bold there manner -  then do all this within a setting that I wish I would stumble on in real life.  However, it rarely does all come together in the chaos of the natural world.    While there is order and planning in the living things themselves, nature throws storms, floods, earthquakes, avalanches, ice ages, and so on at the landscape creating a sense of disorder and chaos.  Most of the time, it looks like a junior high garage band sounds – messy!  Enter the creative and orderly thoughts of a human being, especially the artistic mind and like a landscape designer, one can begin to simplify, order, and arrange things in a more pleasing manner that soothes the soul.  Creating these make believe scenes is challenging, however, because I don't want it to look like a park, or like someone "did it."  I want the scene to still feel natural and wild.  So, I pulled together over 20 photographs for this painting and wrote a song.  I hope you feel the swell of the melody as you approach this rushing stream.  It is the crescendo of the song in the hills where the music speaks powerfully to your inner you. This piece - Mountain Melody - was arranged and “performed” just for you.

~ Mark Keathley