Southernwestern art

Read an excerpt from my new book, Desert Dialogues

Desert Dialogues, By David Rothermel
Introduction By John Linton
Click here to order
ISBN# 1-881325-81-4

Art is a broad term relating to creativity, beauty and emotion. Poetry is a written art form in which language is used to express aesthetic qualities.  Both poetry and art predate literacy and have been employed by cultures to tell stories or record history. Rhetorically speaking, is there art in poetry and conversely poetry in art? The answer is obvious as both painter and poet by merit are admired and stand alone. More intriguing, however is the blending of these different elements and components. This marriage of word and paint, when accomplished, can touch the sensibilities of viewer and reader alike as a well-loved song and symphony tug at our heartstrings. David Rothermel’s Desert Dialogues is a remarkable construct that effectively unites these two forms of human expression. Rothermel, a landscape artist, long known for his ability with a brush to capture the wonder and enchantment of the desert Southwest, has delivered magic in word and paint. His new book offers insight, inspiration and quiet reflection into the beauty created in the desert sky. Rarely does one come across the opportunity to delight the senses in both art and poetry in a shared context. Both forms successfully represent the artist’s spirited admiration and passion for the Southwest to which he has dedicated himself for the better part of three decades. Cliché for any artist is a difficult obstacle to move past but with Desert Dialogues David Rothermel has created a unique piece of originalism. The painterly style that is evidenced in his written word plays harmony to the art and bathes the soul. However, the tone of his poetic subject is more than soft accompaniment. David’s poetry becomes an expression of moment that opens a window into the heart of his painting. Rothermel, the storied painter, has artfully rendered color into the written word. This delightful book is to be savored and enjoyed again and again.

John Linton
Artbook of the New West

FORWARD
 David Rothermel

Desert Dialogues.....Over the years, my creative forces have
taken me in directions not familiar to my career solely as a painter.
I have always been inspired by the written and spoken word.
My journals are filled with love poems, songs, stories,
renderings of architecture and designs, inventions
and paradoxical views of life. My published poetry includes
 The Mile High Poetry Society and the International Poetry Society.
My quiet, subtle, but strong paintings have always
reached out to have someone to talk to.
The poems included in "Desert Dialogues" have a
 sense of completion in that process.
 Whether this book is open, on a shelf, or coffee table,
 I will know that the spirit of the pages will speak to each other.
 David R. Rothermel
 

Valley of the Sun

Whispering moments declare
 the end of the day,
Soft breezes with the smell
of wet cedar and sage.
As the shadows begin their
evening stretch and yawn
 as the sun sets in the west,
The mountains declare their freedom
from the radiating pulses of
the day.
Wisping clouds linger in the moment,
assimilating their lacy, bare bellies
into the evening.
The changes occur in subtlety.
The gathering of the desert’s
own thoughts before the night
strips away its light.

Selected Collections

General Motors Corporation
National 3M Corporation
Revlon
Union Pacific
Iowa Beef Corporation
Farnsworth Museum
Butler Institute of American Art
Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art
New Mexico Museum
Via del Palmar, Cabo B.C.S.
Twin Dolphin Hotel, Cabo B.C.S.