Donald Bruce Stouder

Avalon Donald Bruce Stouder

It is a bit unconventional but that tends to be how I roll. I thought I might create a collection of poems, essays and images, most of which are photographs with oil or watercolor placed over the photograph in post-production. It all seems creatively interconnected to me. I am an INFP and a Scorpio, can you tell?I have worked in health care for my entire 46 year adult career, first as a medic and then as a Trauma and Health Care Chaplain. I believe that my work as an artist reflects this journey along the borders of life and death. Like many of you, my creative eye is drawn to natural beauty, bright colors, dramatic contrasts, and visual texture and tension. My writing explores human emotion and longing, and my love of color celebrates living life to it's fullest, with contrasts that recognize the dramatic twists and turns that most of us experience as we move through the world. My need to write or to photograph scenic landscapes and other images, especially here in the Desert Southwest, affirms the beauty and courage I have seen in the lives of my patients and their families, and is a tribute to them as well as a way to say "thank you" for allowing me to be a part of their journey. Many thanks to the journals and magazines that have previously published much of the material in this book. They include Medium, Prism & Pen, Illumination, Share The Love, Differences, Tyro Magazine, Poets At Work Magazine, SAMISDAT, and Galaxy Magazine. Thanks also to shows and galleries that have shown some of the digital art in this book, including the Rancho Mirage Art Show, Mission Trails Regional Park, University of California San Diego, and the Twiggs Gallery.