One of my guilty pleasures is driving past industrial sites at night. I understand just how bad they are for the environment, and of course, I'm concerned about that, but there is also a strange beauty in them.

Late at night, when the traffic is at a minimum, and there is nothing but dark sky and the contrasting shimmering lights, clouds of steam, and wafting smoke from a big, unknown industrial building, the sense of eerie surrealism catches hold of me. It is easy for me to imagine these places being in another realm with me being the only person there to see it.. It makes me wonder why people like me have the desire to experience that kind of weirdness--the feeling of being scared or tantalized in such a way.

Ever since I was a child I have been a fan of strange juxtapositions: good versus evil, surrealist art, a swanky department store's windows decorated with well-dressed, headless mannequins. I don't know where it comes from, but it is there.

I also like the idea of strange and wonderful things hiding behind curtains. Like the idea that you have a strange aunt that you visit once in awhile and she's got these lush, velvety drapes. Sometimes you see them gently sway, but the window is closed. One day you decide to peek behind them and as you slowly pull the edge of the drape back your eye catches something that couldn't possibly be in the room with you. This is where "Industrial Landscape with Two Moons" comes from.

While the lush curtain in this pastel drawing is the dominant color, the focal point reflects the greyness of a forlorn place where a lone industrial building pumps forth it's waste into the atmosphere. A bolt of electricity has parted the landscape, and one of this lonely world's moons has fallen to the icy ground.

This piece was done using Windsor and Newton soft pastels on black Canson pastel paper.