A cat ponders a bowl of fruit

Shadow and Fruit – Acrylic on Canvas

Shadow assumes her role as witness to life’s quiet entropy. The painting, from 2001, captures that eternal moment where feline curiosity intersects with the mundane poetry of decomposition—a still life that refuses to remain still.

Her silhouette, rendered in that liminal space between presence and absence, speaks to the dual nature of her kind: both here and elsewhere, anchored in physical form yet somehow transcending it. The subtle red glow that haunts her edges suggests an inner warmth that defies the void-like plane surrounding her, as if her very being generates its own atmosphere of contemplation.

The ceramic bowl, that humble altar to domestic ritual, cradles its offerings with stoic grace. The orange rests in perfect wholeness, a temporary sun in this private cosmos, while beside it the bananas surrender to time’s patient insistence. Their slow decay becomes a testament to the way all things move through states of being—from utility to beauty to something approaching transcendence in their final surrender.

Shadow’s cocked head captures that quintessential feline gesture of focused ambivalence, where interest and indifference dance their eternal duet. In this gesture lies the heart of the painting’s philosophical inquiry: how do we measure the worth of things in their various states of becoming and unbecoming? Through her eyes, the fruit becomes more than mere sustenance or decay—it becomes a puzzle of existence itself, worthy of profound consideration.

The textured plane, almost void-like in its subtle suggestion of infinite space, transforms this simple domestic scene into something approaching cosmic significance. Here, in this space between defined and undefined, a cat contemplates the nature of transformation while time itself holds its breath, waiting to see what wisdom might emerge from this convergence of observer and observed.

Twenty-four years later, the painting itself has become a meditation on preservation—how moments caught in pigment resist time’s flow even as they document its passage. Shadow’s eternal contemplation continues, unaware that her painted form would outlast her physical one, becoming a testament to the way art transforms even our most intimate domestic moments into monuments of remembrance.

Red plastic bottle adrift in a sunset colored seascape

Adrift and Alone – Oil Painting

In the cruel poetry of human consequence, beauty and devastation dance an uneasy waltz across the the canvas’s intimate terrain. Here, where sunset bleeds its chromatic confession into waiting waters, a single red bottle drifts in elegant abandonment—an exile in a wilderness we have unknowingly crafted from our own discarded dreams.

The bottle, that ambassador of our disposable age, catches evening light with the same innocent grace as any natural wonder. Its synthetic skin transforms beneath the sun’s dying rays, becoming something approaching sublime even as it bears witness to our collective shortsightedness. Reds and purples paint its form in hues borrowed from nature’s most transcendent moments, as if the very sky conspires to highlight the strange beauty we have cast adrift in our wake.

There’s a profound loneliness in this singular focus—how isolation transforms even our refuse into subjects worthy of contemplation. The bottle floats in space between intention and abandonment, between utility and eternal persistence. Each ripple of light across its surface tells a story of transformation: how something created for moments of convenience has become an unwilling monument to permanence.

In rendering this castaway in sunset’s most seductive palette, the painting speaks to deeper truths about beauty’s complicated relationship with consequence. The same colors that draw us into contemplation of natural wonder here serve to illuminate our impact—how even our mistakes can catch light like prayers, how destruction often wears the face of momentary grace.

The title “Adrift” carries its own weight of meaning, speaking not just to the physical state of this wandering artifact, but to our own uncertain navigation of responsibility and consequence. In this single frame, captured on wood that once lived and breathed, we confront the strange marriage of intention and impact—how our brief conveniences birth eternal companions for Earth’s ancient oceans.

This piece becomes both celebration and indictment, a meditation on the way human presence transforms even the most pristine wilderness into a gallery of unintended installations. The bottle, lonely prophet of consumer convenience, floats eternal in its sunset reverie, beautiful and damned, a singular voice in the vast chorus of our collective impact.

2 Koi swim in a pool with reflections as smoke on the water

Koi Duo – Oil Painting

Water’s surface becomes canvas for cosmic dreams, two koi navigate the boundaries between earthly and celestial realms. Their fluid forms, rendered in oils that capture both motion and meditation, trace elegant arcs through waters that mirror the swirling storms of a distant giant.

Here, the familiar dance of ornamental carp transcends its terrestrial origins. Each ripple in their wake becomes a disturbance in the fabricated cosmos above—their movement below creating new patterns in the Jovian tableau that crowns their aqueous domain. The surface tension holds these two realities in delicate suspension, neither fully water nor fully sky, but something more profound: a membrane between known and unknown, between the tangible poetry of fish-flesh and the distant dreams of gas giants.

The smokey ephemera of Jupiter’s borrowed storms find perfect echo in the water’s constantly shifting surface. Each wave catches light and shadow in ways that speak to the eternal dance of chaos and order—how turbulence creates pattern, how disturbance gives birth to beauty. The koi, in their eternal circling, become both creators and observers of this miniature universe, their golden and pearl scales catching fragments of light that could be stars or could be merely afternoon sun transformed by imagination and pigment.

There’s something profound in this convergence of scales—how the massive atmospheric bands of a distant planet find their echo in the subtle play of light across disturbed water, how beings as earthbound as fish can swim through what appears to be deep space. Through careful attention to the way light bends and breaks across the water’s surface, the painting captures that eternal moment where the ordinary transcends itself, where a garden pond becomes an observatory for cosmic wonder.

In this suspended moment, the boundaries between above and below, between near and far, between real and imagined, dissolve into something approaching truth. The koi continue their eternal dance, unaware perhaps that their simple movements create and destroy universe after universe in the reflective cosmos above—each ripple a new storm system, each turn a reorganization of celestial forces.

Here, in this marriage of earthly and celestial waters, we find a meditation on perspective itself—how the grandest cosmic designs might be mirrored in the smallest disturbances of our daily world, how we might find infinity in a garden pond if only we learn to see with sufficient wonder.

A crab climbs a shelves full of reflective glass bottles in bright sunlight

Crab Climbing Bottles

Between sea and shore, where tides write their stories in the language of ebb and flow, I found myself drawn to explore a different kind of migration. Here, rendered in oil pastel’s unforgiving honesty, a crab ventures beyond its ancestral territory into a landscape of human detritus transformed by intention into something approaching sacred geometry.

The shelves, laden with glass bottles, become both obstacle and opportunity—each vessel a prism catching and fracturing sunlight into countless possibilities. The crab, creature of twilight zones and tidal margins, navigates this crystalline forest with the deliberate grace of an explorer charting unknown territories. Its claws, evolved for the crush and scuttle of intertidal life, here become tools of delicate negotiation with these fragile sentinels of human presence.

There’s something profound in this juxtaposition—how the hard-shelled pragmatism of the crab’s form creates unexpected dialogue with the ethereal nature of light-filled glass. Each bottle becomes its own small universe, holding not just space but captured light, transformed and multiplied until the ordinary shelving unit becomes an altar to possibility.

Working in oil pastel allowed me to explore the way light fractures and reforms, how it pools in the curves of glass and slides across the crab’s carapace like liquid possibility. The medium’s resistance to perfect blending mirrors the slight awkwardness of the crab in this manufactured environment—each mark a testament to the beautiful imperfection of crossing boundaries.

This piece joins its siblings in my ongoing exploration of these unlikely encounters—each drawing a meditation on adaptation, on finding grace in spaces we were never meant to inhabit. Through this series, these crustacean wanderers become avatars for all of us who have ever found ourselves navigating unfamiliar terrain, finding beauty in the very alienation that defines our journey.

In the end, perhaps that’s what draws me back to these scenarios—how they speak to the eternal dance between belonging and displacement, between the wild and the curated, between what we inherit and what we dare to explore. Each crab, each bottle, each play of light becomes part of a larger story about finding wonder in the spaces between our expected territories.

Horse, 2 dogs and a crow interact at teh fencline

Victor, Riley, Rabbit and Crow

Standing before my studio panel, I find myself drawn into the story unfolding in pigment and possibility—a tale that emerged not from planned composition but from the daily poetry of our small farm. Here, where the boundaries between domestic and wild blur into something more nuanced, I’ve captured a moment that speaks to the unexpected harmonies that grace our lives when we pause long enough to witness them.

Victor, our gentle giant, has always carried himself with a dignity that transcends his role as mere farm resident. In this piece, I wanted to capture the way he drops that mantle of equine majesty into something more intimate when his crow friend arrives. Their connection, painted in the subtle angle of his neck and the direct gaze between species, reveals something profound about the nature of friendship—how it finds its way through the most unlikely channels when we leave space for wonder.

Riley and Rabbit, our cattle dogs, bring their own complexity to this narrative. I found myself smiling as I laid down their forms at the fence line, recognizing in their postures that familiar tension between their bred imperative to control and their genuine puzzlement at this disruption of their understood order. Their presence grounds the piece in the daily reality of farm life while simultaneously highlighting how extraordinary this moment truly is.

The crow—this elegant ambassador between wild and domesticated realms—emerged on the panel as more than mere wildlife. Through careful attention to the interplay of light and shadow, I sought to capture that spark of intelligence that first drew it into conversation with Victor. There’s something profound in their shared gaze, something that speaks to the possibility of connection across all manner of perceived boundaries.

Working on this larger scale allowed me to explore these relationships with the depth they deserve. The 30″x40″ panel became a window into a moment where the usual hierarchies of farm life dissolve into something more profound—a testament to the daily miracles that unfold when we allow ourselves to witness them with open hearts and careful eyes.

In many ways, this piece feels less like a painting I created and more like a story I was privileged to witness and record—a moment where the extraordinary revealed itself in the seemingly ordinary rhythm of another day on our farm.

Crab’s Bouquet

'Crab's Bouquet' a 30"x40" oil painting by Christian Hammer
30″x40″ Oil on Canvas – Christian Hammer 2023

Crab’s Bouquet an Oil Painting by Christian Hammer

In ‘Crab’s Bouquet’, the artist Christian Hammer invites us to take a magical journey beneath the waves, where a crab swims gracefully through the water, reaching for a bouquet of flowers. The crab is rendered in exquisite detail, its shell glistening in the light.

The surface of the water is alive with movement, rippling and shimmering as if it were alive.

As we watch the crab, we can’t help but feel a sense of wonder at the hidden world beneath the surface of the water. The artist’s use of color and light creates a dream-like quality, transporting us to a place where anything is possible.

In this alternate reality, even a crab can grasp a bouquet of flowers, as if it were a water nymph reaching for a gift from the sea.

The artist believes that those who live and work in the Salish Sea region have a deep connection to the animals that call it home. The paintings have sparked conversations about the importance of preserving and protecting these creatures and their habitat.

For many, the paintings have evoked a sense of wonder and appreciation for the natural world, and have served as a reminder of the intricate web of life that we are all a part of.

Prints available for purchase $500

Thirsty Crab

16″x20″ Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

Thirsty Crab is a 16"x20" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas painting by the artist Christian Hammer from Washington State

“Thirsty Crab” an Oil Painting by Christian Hammer

The inspiration for ‘Thirsty Crab’ came from the artist’s love of the natural world and concern for the impacts of human activity. While the painting is lighthearted and whimsical on the surface, there is a deeper message about our relationship with the environment.

Using a Dungeness crab as the subject, the artist Christian Hammer invites us to reflect on the ways in which our actions can have unintended consequences.

In the painting, the dungeness crab is drawn to a bottle of wine, representing the allure of human luxuries and comforts. However, the crab is also literally and figuratively ‘steaming’, a subtle reference to the impacts of climate change.

By juxtaposing these elements, the artist encourages us to consider the complex and often paradoxical relationship between humans and nature. The painting invites us to reflect on our own choices and actions, and to consider how we can live in harmony with the natural world.

In ‘Thirsty Crab’, the artist uses the contrast between the peaceful, idyllic setting and the underlying message to create a sense of tension and unease. The viewer is left with a feeling of uncertainty and even foreboding, which encourages reflection and introspection.

The simple yet powerful style of the painting makes it both accessible and thought-provoking, inviting the viewer to contemplate their own role in the issues it raises.

Original Available for Purchase $1000

Light Beer by Christian Hammer

16″x20″ Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

"Light Beer" is a 16"x20" Acrylic and Oil on Canvas painting by Christian Hammer in Washington State

“Light Beer” an Oil Painting by Christian Hammer

One of the striking things about this painting is the use of light and color. The darkness of the background makes the clear glass bottle stand out, and the light it emits is almost ethereal.

This creates a sense of mystery and wonder, as the crab seems to be drawn to the light, almost as if it’s mesmerized by it. It’s as if the bottle represents something beyond the crab’s understanding, something more than just a discarded object. In this way, the painting is a commentary on human waste and pollution, but also on the wonder and mystery of the natural world.

Original available for purchase $1000

Koi Bounded and Content

Koi - bounded but Content - Oil painting on reclaimed wood panel by Christian Hammer 2019 in Washington State
Oil painting on reclaimed wood panel 9″x15″ by Christian Hammer 2019

Koi Bounded and Content

Oil Painting on reclaimed wood panel by Christian Hammer

In this painting, the artist Christian Hammer explores the idea of boundaries and contentment, using the metaphor of a koi fish living within the reclaimed wood panel. The koi’s acceptance of its limited space represents the idea that contentment can be found within any boundaries, and that true happiness comes from appreciating the present moment.

The koi’s peaceful posture further convey the idea of contentment and acceptance. The reclaimed wood panel, with its rough and textured surface, suggests the passage of time and history. The imperfections of the wood are celebrated, adding beauty and interest to the painting.

The koi seems to embody the spirit of the wood, finding beauty and meaning within its limits.

The wood was once part of a living tree, with its own journey from seedling to maturity. Then, it was harvested and used for a practical purpose. Finally, it was reclaimed and repurposed into a work of art.

Each stage of its existence has given it new meaning and value, and this adds depth and complexity to the painting.

The fact that this is the third painting on this panel adds a layer of mystery and intrigue to the artwork. The previous paintings, though mostly erased, still leave their mark, like the shadows of past lives. They add depth and texture, both physically and metaphorically, giving the koi’s journey a sense of history and resonance.

It’s as if the koi is not only content in its present moment, but also accepting of the journey that led it there.

Original is sold, prints are available: $400

California Poppies

California Poppies Abstraction - Oil on canvas painting 20"x30" by Christian Hammer artist in Washington State

California Poppies Abstraction – Oil on canvas painting

The artist Christian Hammer was inspired by the wild poppies that grow on his farm, finding joy and gratitude in their unassuming yet vibrant beauty. The painting captures the ephemeral nature of the poppies, their brilliant colors set against the dark field. The artist’s careful attention to detail and precise brushwork are evident in this painting, despite its subject matter of wildflowers.

The dark blue background and abstracted elements contrast with the vibrancy of the poppies, giving the painting a dynamic and visually interesting composition. The contrast between the representational flowers and the more stylized background creates a sense of depth and movement, drawing the viewer’s eye into the scene.

The painting is a reminder to appreciate the simple and fleeting pleasures of life, and to find beauty in the everyday.

Original is sold, prints are available for purchase: $100