Jonathan Beer interviews artist Mike Glier about his work and career.

Glier comments: "Working in the studio got boring, so I started to paint out of doors in upstate NY. I’d get set up outside, choose a subject and then the wind would blow everything to the ground. Or the clouds would come in and change the light completely, or a bird would fly by and it would be so much more interesting than I what I was painting, that I’d change the course of the picture and paint the bird. Plein air painting is about serendipity and giving up any sort of plan and being responsive to what is happening. I love it! So I did that for a couple of years, and it was fun, but I questioned if the project was relevant to contemporary life. I began to think about the stretch of perception that all of us are asked to make as citizens of the 21st century; we are asked to be sensitive to our local environments and to protect their uniqueness, but at the same time we are asked to be conscious of the consequences of our actions on a global scale. To be sensitive to your local environment and conscious of your role as a global citizen requires a lot of imagination and empathy. So, I wondered, ‘How can an artwork possibly engage these extremes of perception?"