In 1996 I climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro with the Colorado Outward Bound School. It was an extraordinary climb as we had permission to ascend from the Tanzania side, which was scarcely used. As part of the adventure, we helped to construct a library for the local school at the base of the great mountain. We went on safari, where we found animals very used to human presence (as opposed to our excursion through Botswana) And we had the opportunity to visit a Masai village.

While I was very impressed by this community of people who survived in the bush, surrounded by thorn fences structured as thick hedges, tucked in their traditional nomadic huts…I also felt as if their presence was fading. Perhaps it was the western clothes and school uniforms that were slowly infiltrating the pronounced red and white traditional patterns, or perhaps it was a longing curiosity that lingered in their gazes as they absorbed all they could about the visitors; fingering the shiny accoutrements and touching smooth locks.

I painted this pair of portraits a decade later. The figures appear ghost like as a reflection of the feeling of disappearance that haunted me. Of the pair of women above, the western dressed lady is nearly a ghost, while the mother is draped with a cape that makes her body appear as if it is fading into the landscape. More pronounced, but still transparent, is her smiling face holding her babe with pride, and the strong contrast of the red stripes across her traditional skirt.

Below, her husband gazes towards a giraffe grazing in the trees nearby. The pair of paintings was spurred by news of the quiet disappearance of the Giraffe, and painted with great sadness as the thought of these graceful, loping creatures suffering such great losses. The student from Nairobi stands by the Masai hunter as if she is a ghost, floating as her gaze follows his. Around her neck a single lens reflex camera, learning how to track wildlife from the master hunter, but using different technology to capture the pair of disappearing aspects of the Savannah landscape.

Works completed in 2006 from photographs collected on a journey through Southern & Eastern Africa in 1996. Oil on canvas.