"Cobbs Hill" stands as an experiment in interactivity: visual, dimensional and emotional.

Passed daily by thousands of commuters, returned to by park goers, who gravitate to favorite spots, the park, as a whole, as an entity, with related mini-universes of activity often escapes recognition. I’ve tried to see the park whole, not by parceling out space roughly proportional to nook or corner or recognizable landmark, but as an intersection of energies.

To underscore the integrity of each section, I have outlined various zones, the most dramatic of which is an interactive dog wheel. This fully functional wheel revolves, miming that section of the park where there are dog paths, where dogs meet dogs and dog owners meet other dog owners, dogs play and owners talk dog talk in endless cycles. This makes the painting interactive, and people can participate in the round about motion that happens at the top of the park where people are walking around, driving around, biking and rollerblading around and around.

The two animals above the dog wheel are modern and primitive. I want to honor animal spirits not yet born and the ancient lingering animal spirits that abide in the dense, woodsier areas of the park. For the same reason, the trees grin eerily and playfully, suggesting they know something we do not. The reservoir holds the center, as if glimpsed from above without dominating the composition.

The people are drawn deliberately in stick figures. Next to plant and animal, human experience is brief, a mere rough sketch yet to be fully elaborated. Paradoxically, even the city, our own creation, seems at times to dwarfs us. Yet the overall juxtaposition of forms, human and natural and manufactured, strives not for ironic observation, but to elicit a joy and playfulness in the wedding of energies.