How "could" one borrow a view? The works of artist, Ray Kass (b. 1944) are as much, if not more, about the experience and process of perception and art-making as they are about the final objects he creates. Kass is notorious for not solely his art making, but also for his thinking. He thinks, he writes, he teaches, he discusses, he organizes experiences, he reflects, he assimilates, he paints, he synthesizes, he assembles, he constructs--and then he begins the process all over again. His starting place is not necessarily the same each time, but Kass is ultimately concerned with nature. Kass' work began as purely abstract; later he focused his skills on realistic depiction of the natural landscape, and then he returned to a more mature form of abstraction. Some of Kass' earlier works from the mid-1980s depict aerial views of New York City. The paintings, rough and sketchy, are created with an energetic hand. Kass' "Borrowed View" (1997-98) came from the ideas generated during a two-part exchange workshop in 1997/98 that began near Kyoto, Japan, and culminated at Mountain Lake, West Virginia. Japanese artist Jiro Okura led the collaborative workshop (between Kyoto University and Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Virginia, where Kass teaches) in Japan, where 42 students created a large multi-part screen, also titled "Borrowed View." Kass traveled with the group as a leader and teacher, and he produced drawings on that trip of rock formations at Ryoanji. The view, or vision, that Kass has borrowed and, perhaps, loaned to viewers is not just a physical impression on the eye, but a spiritual experience of nature brought to sight from the inside out.