I recently had an experience right here in Eugene that has stayed with me—one of those rare moments when art completely changes how you see the world. I'm talking about the powerful work of James Lavadour at the Jordan Schnitzer Museum of Art on the University of Oregon campus.
His large-scale paintings, which are often assembled from many separate panels, aren’t simply pictures of the earth; they are the earth’s autobiography.
Lavadour is a master landscape painter, and as a celebrated member of the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Reservation, his approach is less about literal representation and far more about making the geological and elemental processes of the land visible.
It’s like watching millions of years unfold in a single moment.
I walked up to one of his nine-panel works—swirls of impossible reds, deep ochres, and volcanic greens—and I felt a literal tug of vertigo. That was my moment. Standing there, I didn't see a painting; I saw the ancient, churning heart of the planet. I felt the pressure of mountains being born and the violent rush of erosion. It’s an intense emotional involvement because the work demands you recognize your own fleeting existence against this vast, eternal, geological scale.
Lavadour himself works from a deep knowledge of the land, not pre-planned images. He sees the process of painting as an "event," much like a jazz musician improvising on a theme. He lets the paint itself—its flow, its drips, its textures—dictate the final form.
This "long view" is what gets me. Our human structures—our buildings, our calendars—feel so ephemeral when contrasted with the history revealed in his canvases. He shows us the true nature of time, where we are just a whisper in the wind of deep earth history.
