My mother introduced me to L Frank Baum's Wizard of Oz books as a kid up in Wyoming. Initially she read them to me and eventually I took to reading as many as I could get my hands on. The library had a good collection.

Especially drawn to his imaginary landscapes, I used to imagine bringing them to paint. Kansas and Oz. Talk about Utopia Displaced.

With my mother's passing I decided it was time to really bring Oz to life. To do a grand painting. I began to look around for material and consider it's location. It seemed placing The Emerald City in Taos would be a great displacement. For many, Taoz is the other side of the rainbow.

Although my paintings have a certain surrealistic, almost fantasy type quality, I do work with reference material. For me what I have seen and where I have been are a necessary part of the creative process. I take a lot of photographs. "The Other Side of Oz II" began with a photograph I took in Taos, which I did first as a small 8 x 10, "Early Morning Dusting of Snow" which became "Apricot Lane" which became "The Other Side of Oz II". I also used "Dancing Trees" from a small sketch I did near the Taos High School. For the Emerald City itself I used photographs I had taken near the Denver Art Museum to "grow" the imaginary city. These were my main references for the large 40 x 50 canvas. The Yellow Brick Road is imaginary as is the balloon. Look carefully for the scarecrow.

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