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 n this episode, I revisit the high promontory at Balltown, Iowa, overlooking the Mississippi River Valley below, and in the distance toward the east, is a thunderstorm that has just passed through. The storm left the green valley turgid with life. After all, it's spring in the heartland. Cattle waste no time to graze on the new growth, and the air appears to be scrubbed clean as sunlight bathes the landscape in its warmth. This is my second in my series of large landscapes, and my goal here was to create tension through the use of compositional elements like the thunderheads and torrent of rain falling on the horizon. Few landscapes tell an actual story, but I think this one does. Thunderstorms are the bringers of life on the prairie, and through weather can often become violent and destructive, it is the stuff of life that is essential and it is what makes our area the spectacularly beautiful place it is.

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