Joe Romano, an artist with a lifetime of experience in places like Philadelphia, New York and Los Angeles, has found peace and serenity in Ashland Oregon.  Romano, a great trumpet player/composer expressly wanted to trade the city's honking horns and the shrill echoes of metal and glass for something less grating.  Ashland is sometimes  called "The Italy of Oregon", and it is reminiscent of the Umbria  region of central Italy, which appeals to Joe's ethnic origins.  As a visual  artist, he has a renewed appreciation for nature in general.

"A little naive?" he asks me as I question him, and I tell him, "No.  Quite Zen." 

The fact is, Joe has for fun been finding papier mâché animals in thrift stores and garage sales for many years.  He never could  find enough to even make it a hobby, thus it never conflicted with his sophisticated art world notions of what he should be doing as an  artist.  Now, he can confront the "fun" in a frame of mind that takes him beyond intent and ambition to just create in nature these whimsical animals.

He takes into the surface painting some of the tension, and glimmers of detail that resolve and go away in his own life  experiences. He is interpreting nature and seeing the rabbit through his own skin and eyes. The fish under the flow of water is a visitor he can make real with art.

He is with art and nature making a bridge to a new reality.

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