Goose Pond

Little St. Simons Island, Georgia
August 16, 2014 (Finished 2014)
Oil on canvas
14 x 18 in. (35.6 x 45.7 cm)

Private collection

Long ago abandoned behind the eastward migrating beach front, Goose Pond is now only occasionally influenced by salt water. In rainy years when the water is fresher, straw-colored flatsedge and kidney-leaf mud plantain appear along the sunny edges of the pond.

Such were the conditions when I set up to paint the well-vegetated water’s surface in the summer of 2014. In a minor departure from my usual treatment of scenery, I chose to include a few alligators and herons in the composition. I felt they had earned their spots by staying in position for the entire hour I painted. More importantly, I felt they would contribute to, but not compete with, the subject of the painting, which of course was Goose Pond itself.

– adapted from The Wild Treasury of Nature: A Portrait of Little St. Simons Island (UGA Press 2016)

Also see Goose Pond Wetland.

Painted on location, finished in the studio November 2014.

Exhibition History

Publication History