​Life Lost and Dreams Forgotten - 30 x 24 oil on canvas
 
Sexagenarian Man sits without artifice to judge the essence of his past life in a series of visual metaphors. The foundation of his musings is a beautiful park of trees and water accompanied by an eroded desert landscape.
Forget-me-not flowers grow nearby expressing his hope that his legacy will survive.  Bees suggest that some events remembered might have a sting.
     He is reminded of his intellectual achievements by The Tree of Knowledge growing in the park, and by how much he has forgotten. The Magnifying Glass of Curiosity is at the heart of the tree. The lens is fractured, signifying its diminishing function as Sexagenarian Man ages. He still longs to understand The Universe, but receiving answers to his questions no longer seems critical. 
Two fighting stallions in the park represent his youthful competitive sparing with his peers, and the possible harm that might have come from it.
     A bull charging a startled Grim Reaper is reminiscent of Sexagenarian Man’s defiance of death through careless activities of youthful bravado. In addition, a man sportingly surfs down a lava flow. He remembers peers who lost their battle with death and consequently lost the greater part of their lives.
     A volcano portrays his past fiery ambition and creative drive. It generates new worlds that precariously float towards a threatening thunderhead coming from behind the desert hills. The storm represents social obstacles that hindered his welfare and success such as prejudice, defamation, deceit, and perverse changes in the mores of society. Waiting to strike, The Snake of Evil depicts sociopolitical discord and violence.
     A rock climber scaling the thorn bush-covered hills represents personal traits that occasionally hampered his progress, such as illness, defeatism, regret, and apathy. He overcame these weaknesses, but fears they might resurface with time.
     A stream flows from a cave at the base of the desert hills to nourish a rebirth of the park. In the stream stands a quiescent pregnant woman who represents Sexagenarian Man’s paternal procreative yearnings. Has his instinctive drive been fulfilled?
     Farther downstream a nude woman poses seductively while she gives a challenging stare. She represents his mating endeavors. Thistles that bloom at her feet signify the difficulties that romantic relationships create.
     Beside a small waterfall, The Sands of Time fall in an hourglass pattern. The resultant mound of expired time pushes aside The Egg of New Beginnings. Perched on a stem of foxglove in the foreground, a frantic raven caws a warning.
     The stone outcropping over which the park water flows has a face and hand pointing scrutinizingly at Sexagenarian Man. He is fully responsible for much of what he sees. Do his memories reflect a life fulfilled – one where he enjoyed all that was achievable?
Excalibur, King Arthur’s sword of valor, hovers over a spherical stone from which the sword was drawn. For him, the sword represents ethical fervor and idealism. The stone represents honesty and justice. Were these personal principles realized?
     Sexagenarian Man’s life has changed over time and the activities and dreams of his youth have been lost or forgotten. He realizes he is a different man and must accept a past of accomplishment and mishap as it unfolded. For him to return for continuation or reparation is not possible. Do his memories leave him with an overall feeling of peaceful satisfaction?  What more might he do in the future?  How will he be remembered?

​Melting Man -   24 x 48  oil on canvas
 
You weren’t bestowed the wings of flight,
and had to crawl through dirt and stone.
Well, I too have known the rugged path,
so, don’t believe you’ve been alone.
 
You say you could have been renowned,
and scold me with vindictive ire.
We all have dreamt of eminence,
only to melt within the fire.

​Celebration – 48 x 60 oil on canvas
 
We celebrate the life of Earth, our lives, and new life to be.
We celebrate the spirit of dreams and those dreams that create the future. 
We soar through the air, through the clouds, through the cosmos.
We love beyond our understanding and ability to express.
One vital spark initiated all life. 
One thread of life embellished the Earth.
One mind of power uncloaks The Universe. 
We will reach and discover more. 
We will fly to the end.
  
Apollo, god of love and music, soars over the eternity beam in celebration of life and love.  He figuratively holds an ovary of Aphrodite, identified by a rose, as a show of their union and bond of love.  A white cloth, signifying Apollo’s noble character, floats through the air and burns with his passion. 
 
Aphrodite, goddess of love, beauty, and procreation, glides over a dark sea as she focuses her attention on an egg representing new life.  Blood droplets tell of the pain and effort required for procreation.   A moth representing Psyche, goddess of the soul, spreads her wings over the egg in silent vigil.  The tau symbol, which represents resurrection and life, inscribes the rock. 
 
An orange and orange blossoms representing purity and passion float above a red placenta-like cloth that represents motherhood and birth. 
 
A parchment contains a pledge written in blood and entitled perpetuity in Greek.  It is securely held in place with a brick upon which a sacred quill rests. 
 
On the end of the eternity beam are symbols that say there exists for all, infinity (or eternity), proclaiming life and love will last forever.
 
A dark rocky outcrop reluctantly allows the moon of romance to peek past, suggesting adversity always lurks in the background to challenge life and love, but fails in the end.

​Stallion Galleon and the Sea Mistress Mystery   – 30 x 40 oil on canvas
 
A blazing galleon ship of war comes crashing to shore with its horsehead sails screaming in terror.  The ship’s wheel lays half buried in the beach sand indicating the ship is out of control.  A sky octopus shoots its ink in surprise while lightning strikes a futuristic city tower.  The sky weeps new life as a man climbs towards his afterlife.  An innocent child feeds Earth to a tiger headed sea turtle as a hellish rent slices across the sand.  An egg of change erupts from the sand, casting aside a glass of wine and merriment. 
All of this takes place as the Sea Mistress placidly lies at water’s edge and languidly draws the infinity symbol in the sand.  What secret gifts her with calm? 
Why is the hub of the ship’s wheel tricolored?  Such a symbol is used by Buddhism practitioners to represent The Eight Noble Paths.  Perhaps The Sea Mistress finds guidance and solace in such wisdom.

The Noble Eightfold Path
Right View – Know the truth
Right Intention – Free your mind of evil
Right Speech – Say nothing that hurts others
Right Action – Work for the good of others
Right Livelihood – Respect life
Right Effort – Resist evil
Right Concentration – Practice meditation
Right Mindfulness – Control your thoughts

​Voyage the Desperate Mind 24 x 36

Voyage the desperate mind of a man
and weather the storms that tear at his soul.
Experience his dreams as he searches for love,
while his hopes fall twisting out-of-control.
 
Churn in tumultuous clouds of distress.
Seek mystery, adventure, and profundity rare.
Flee from the horsemen who have come for the end,
and battle-true conflagrations that flare.          
 
Steer your ship boldly! Fly the sails high!
If not, you might never escape.
Keep low any sound of defeat in your cry.
Navigate the maelstrom-swirled mindscape.  

​Egg won best of show for paintings in a large Des Moines Metro wide art show.  Many of Hill's other paintings won awards at similar shows.

Egg – 30 x 20 acrylic on board
 
Nestled in an egg, she slept,
as the walls around her crumbled.
Whales sang their songs and wept
and planets once secure, tumbled.
 
Eternal stars burned in the sky
and geese flew into outer space.
The woman slept within her egg
and dreamt of times she once embraced.
 
Wake into a world of hope
and view the mysteries of time.
Touch the wonders you discover,
and forget the shell you leave behind.
You’re sure to love what new you find.

​Madonnova Spring – 20 x 30 acrylic on board
 
Motherhood is divine to know
and she is peaceful in his hand.
She rests with beauty and the calm
of swans that smoothly fly dreamland.
 
It’s springtime and the moon is high
and the breeze whispers in the night.
A child stirs within her womb
so she pats herself that ‘all is right’.
 
He speaks to her.
He cares for her.
He loves her gentleness.
She smiles at him.
She kisses him.
She coos with his caress.

A Woman’s Journey – 48 x 36 oil on mahogany board
 
Time swirls around an infant as she sleeps with an eternity ahead of her. 
 
Soon, she is a little girl picking flowers and discovering nature.  The world is the yard within her parents’ fence, and occasionally, her school, or the grocery store.
 
In a few years she discovers romance and her own beauty.  It is a power that makes her proud, yet scares her.  Will she ever be accepted by a man of her desires?
 
Yes, she is, and she becomes loved and cherished.  Eventually, she holds within her body a new life to begin the cycle again.
 
The child is born and becomes the center of her world, but he moves out to find his own woman, leaving his mother behind in a home that he will always remember.
 
Now middle-aged, she dons her nightgown, and takes her tea to her chair.  Life is peaceful, but touched with worries.  Is he alright?
 
And then, before she realizes it, the days have passed, she is alone and carrying a cane.  What has happened?  It has been 30,000 days since she sucked her thumb.  Could all those days really have been lived?  ​

Alone and Enduring the Raven Sun           36 x 30 oil on canvas
 
Oh, fiery ball, tame yourself.  Roll away from me despite the raven’s call.
What more pain can a solitary man endure?  Why must every city fall?
The sea is now a pond, a tree is but a leaf. 
A ship sails in desert winds and sinks slowly in grains of grief.
Hear my footfalls as I search for answers that seem impossible to find.
Withhold your burning heat before you consume my mind.

The Forgotten– 30 x 40 oil on canvas
 
A ceaseless stream flows through an eternal world
carrying those  forgotten, those unseen.       
Souls float through water chilled by the night
ferrying hopes long repressed, deceptively serene.
 
Turmoil’s revealed in their anguished faces of gray.
Pain paints shadows within dark eyes that have died.   
Loneliness hauntingly clouds evening air like a ghost.               
Drawn faces stare forever wet by tears never dried.
 
Flow, Forgotten, to another land.
No one will raise you from your icy stream.
Sail away, Forgotten, through your private storm.
Bejeweled ears can’t hear your ageless scream. 

Fleas of Profundity – 30 x 40 oil on canvas
 
We sail the vast ocean of life, enduring storms and riding swells like tiny fleas.  We first boldly challenge our fate, and then scream in terror when we are about to be swallowed by reality.  We forge towards danger with the desire to accomplish or to discover something deeply moving and meaningful: something profound.   But what is truly profound to a flea?  The richness of the world or the vastness of The Universe?  Despite their impressiveness, they are not inherently meaningful, and these wonders were not created by us, we can barely intersect with them with our minimalistic senses.  We have built impressive structures and institutions, but they are profound only because of our relative insignificance, our limited comprehension of true complexity, and our flea-like essence. Perhaps profundity may be found in beauty.  Perhaps, through love.  Perhaps, most of all, through charity.  We each, upon taking our final breaths, will finally know the answer, because at that time all artifice will have been stripped away and we will most accurately weigh the value of life.  
​​

Philosophy is often presented as a stoic, formulaic study of human thought, ethics, and our place in The Universe.  This Phantasmagoria painting and poem coupling is a surrealistic depiction of the true emotional philosophical processes that occur in the depths of the human mind.  We might try to adhere to logical courses of thought and action, but our emotions and desires often cause us to surge this way and that as we struggle to embrace our humanity and the short lives we experience.
 
Phantasmagoria – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Drift peacefully amidst deep ethereal thoughts of tangled wonder.  
Float as twilight specters breathing whispers in the shadows.                
Scream when burned by flames of desperate weeping chaos.               
Embrace tenderly romantic cues in purple passion meadows.     
 
Quiet breaths when grasped by icy fear and seething sweating fever.   
Fight valiantly mediocracy with unchained raging anger.  
Love madly with the power to storm thunderously into calmness.    
Smile kindly upon the small and meek, especially when a stranger. 
 
Mourn silently true love’s loss, while scrutinizing storm clouds for auspicious skies. 
Growl with indefatigable anguish until righteousness profusely blossoms for all eyes.
 
Sing melodiously with ecstatic love when touched by sensual fascination.  
Breathe deeply aromatic air from eternal worlds of intense imagination.
 
Fly deftly with the rebellious raven when energetic, young, and bold.
Dream joyously with the cooing dove once life’s triumphs are manifold.    ​

Storm of the Stallion Specter – 18 x 24 oil on canvas
 
​In the midst of mental turmoil---
a time of questions poorly answered,
when deception borne of envy
plagued the peaceful like a cancer,
came a storm that tore asunder
all fools who looked to wrong for freedom.
In the end they were not blameless,
because they loved who would mislead them.
 
They cried aloud about mistreatment
and ran for shelters long demolished.                  
They fell to knees with shocked amazement
that truths they sought had been abolished.
Came the equine, flashed by lightning,
with thoughts for final subjugation.
It pranced hooves high, with its long mane tossing
and whinnied loud from the great sensation.
 
Screaming psychotic thoughts of conquest,
it blew over land and across the ocean.
It stamped its hooves and chomped its teeth,
and trampled those who lacked devotion.
 
The people found they had no protector,
when struck by the Storm of the Stallion Specter.      

​Men of Fire – 18 x 24 -oil on canvas
 
We are young Men of Fire
with blazes fierce, but roars unheard.
Within our walls, we voice our stress
incinerating desperate words.
Our hot blood droplets
roll downwards tracking
paths once salted with lesser tears.
Our bodies strong, succumb to weakness
when no one else will know our fears.
 
We are young Men of Fire,
with lungs torn raw and hearts beat blue.
Our thoughts of dark days dawning haunt us.
Our crying minds sweat anguish cruel.
Juggernauts of peaceless
Angst we fall fatigued
to find dark nightmare.
Yet, with body new, we rise again.
Tranquil souls blink not, ---beware.
 
We are young Men of Fire,
of solemn truths and potent cause.
We seek out nights where shadows darken,
where laughter’s loud and discord’s raw.
Turning from the muskiness
of silent meek filled deep with dread,
we weep alone.
With roughened fists, we pound our heads,
despairing for the broken stone.
  
Why are we here?
Why do we breathe?
To wake the languid fools who sleep?
No-
No-
Such repose soothes minds unburned.
We lust to grasp a calm so deep.
Nevertheless!
Nevertheless.
We are young Men of Fire.

Who whispers there?
You’re not our friends.
Give us the peace
of normal men.
 
Twilight specters spoil the night,
while mist obscures tomorrow.
Our rage sustains us lest we melt
to formless mounds of sorrow.
 
We meet the world in many ways,
we men of dreams and energy.
Some ignite and turn to ash,
some smolder for infinity,
some burn whomever they might choose
through jealousy and enmity,
and some---
some bold Men of Fire,
fuel the flames that illuminate
a future of sanguinity.

​Extremist Stew – 28 x 22 oil on canvas

‘Round and ‘round we steam and scream with onions and salty vegetables.
Wide-eyed we boil and shout out hate,  then cry a bit for seasoning.
Imparting flavors to the stew we ruin the final recipe.
Come smell and taste our sour blend, gobble-up our poisonous reasoning.

​Night Runner – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Through the night I run.
Haunted by memories feeding anxieties.
Through the darkness I pound my feet
fleeing ghosts of demonic varieties.
 
Faster, faster I must run,
stumbling, then forcing recovery.
My heart tears vessels with its bursting beats.
Through woods and brambles, I fight discovery.

​Desolation Road (White Crow) – 24 x 18 oil on canvas
 
Lamentations fill the air with pain, be silent please White Crow.  
Don’t call for me to come with you, I’m far more frightened than you know.   
Infernos burn the world tonight, disaster borne from an evil spark.
Your scornful call mutilates the air and assaults the calm of dark.
 
My solitude within the night is the small comfort that I seek, 
so, I’ll wait until the dawn appears, I’m presently too weak.   
White Crow, please end your furious calls and spare me the pain you’ve sowed.  
You’ll not get me to follow you down Desolation Road.
 
The sky’s ablaze, there are distant screams, and thick smoke the wind has blown.
This calamity is too much for me, so let me hide alone.
White Crow of old you make me gasp and shudder as you scold.
Yes, tonight I’ll not be traveling down Desolation Road.

​​​Stream of Consciousness – 16 x 12 acrylic on clayboard
 
A young girl ponders the vastness of The Universe, its elements, and its cycles.  Are they eternal, and what does it all mean without human consciousness?
​
Why does the Universe exist?  Why not nothing? 
Of all the questions difficult to answer, this one question will always be unanswerable.
Add a proton and electron to a carbon atom, the basis of a black solid substance and there arises a nitrogen atom, a clear largely unreactive gas.  Do this again and there arises oxygen, a highly reactive gas vital to life.  Add a proton and electron to an atom of gold, a valuable shiny solid, and there arises mercury, a silvery liquid. 
What magic is this?  My mind spins as I gaze at the sky.  There is so much more than I divine with my eye.  Nature flows past me with its hidden answers and I fall silent, a subject of cycles -- pawn of time.

​The New Arrivals – 24 x 12 oil on canvas
 A couple witnesses the arrival of two people into the underworld.  They arrive via Charon’s boat as he navigates it along the river Styx, which carries people from the living world into Hades.

Swallowed by Time – 16 x 20 oil on canvas
 
Silence, oh raven!  I know that the bats of time will once again swarm about me this night. I feel the eroded crevasses open beneath me.  I grasp a vine for rescue, but it stings and bites me and lets loose its roots.  Alas, the rose of beauty has become a thorn bush releasing my blood to the soil, so what more is there to life?  I am being swallowed by time as is eternity itself.  ​

Human consciousness and intellect evolve from our sensuality and figuratively from the heart.  Human intellectualism (represented by the blue spheres) endures on an individual basis, but it eventually fails when institutionalized. 
 
Journey of Man
 
The Universe burns and the galaxies spin,
while the planets determine what’s living therein.
And we living must work and if possible, thrive,
and through loving and giving we will know we’re alive.
Still we never can know what life will demand
but, we can always be sure of the Journey of Man.
​

​​Endless Day – 48 x 36 acrylic and oil on canvas
 
When walking on a beautiful warm day, I often ponder that there are many things we experience today that have not changed from ancient times: beautiful skies, trees, boats on the water, a warm sun in the sky, etc. Our ancestors experienced many of the blissful feelings we enjoy today.  As we walk, we can be forgiven for imagining the day will never end, just as the ancient Greeks might have imagined over 2600 years ago, but it does and the following days also keep spinning by like gusts of breeze through the dust.  These thoughts inspired this painting.  The immortal Greek gods in the sky languidly look down from their casual repasts and enjoy the eternal beauty without having to come to terms with the day’s ephemeral essence.  Nevertheless, beauty survives, and the briefness of our strolls sometimes makes them all the more cherished.

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