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Archive for the ‘Early Paintings’ Category

Hogback Heaven

Posted in Early Paintings, Music, Video, tagged , on October 21, 2011| 3 Comments »

Looking through some old work, most of which was done early on while I was still forming my technique and style and before I showed my work publicly, I came across this oddity that I noted as Hogback Heaven.  It’s a goofy little scene of a rough hewn home and yard somewhere out on a back country road, the kind of place that I often passed years ago in my treks on the backroads around my home area.  All that is missing here from my memories of those places are a barking hound and a toddler in a sagging diaper playing in the gravel of the driveway. 

Whenever I come across this piece, I have to smile.  I don’t know if it’s the subject or the crazy electric feel of the cobalt blue sky and hills and the red neon outlines of the house and ground.  I’m still trying to figure out where that color came from.  Maybe it’s a smile of embarassment that this little painting is hovering in my past.  But there’s something in it that makes me not want to destroy it. 

I wanted to set this post to some fitting music and in my search came across this other sort of oddity.  Called Yiddish Hillbillies, it’s a vintage 40’s era cartoon that has had the soundtrack replaced ( in a very clever and coordinated way) with a song from Mickey Katz.  Katz was a comedian who specialized in Jewish humor, with Yiddish-tinged song parodies of contemporary songs of the time being his specialty.  Think Borscht Riders in the Sky or Sixteen Tons (of Latkes).  While much of the Yiddish-tinged wording goes over my head I do enjoy the klezmer feel here.  A note on Mickey Katz:  His son is actor Joel Grey which makes him the grandfather of actress Jennifer Grey.

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Origin

Posted in Early Paintings, tagged on September 19, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I was asked recently when the Red Chair that is sometimes used in my paintings first appeared.  I really wasn’t sure how and when it found its way into my vocabulary of images so I decided to look back in my files.  The very first images of the Red Chair that I can find so far appeared in early 2002 in a group of very small pieces.  The three above were all just over an inch, maybe an inch and a half square in size.   Just a few little guys that seemed to strike a chord with me.

I don’t know why they showed up at that time.  We, as a nation , were in the immediate aftermath of 9/11 and I know my work was affected by the collective psychology of that time. It was hard to have it not affect something that often reflects one’s feelings.  Perhaps, it was an unconscious symbolization of the chair  to represent what I felt had been lost from that turbulent time.  I can’t honestly say for sure.

The middle piece above was an early hint at the dark blue work that defined that year for my work, which also featured the Red Chair in several pieces.   These pieces were framed and sold separately although I think this group would have made any interesting little trytych.  I really like the way they all relate to one another, how they convey smoothly from one to another the emotion of each. 

It’s a small beginning for something that has gained such importance and meaning  in my personal visual vocabulary.  Maybe I should consider them as acorns that grew…

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Anomalies

Posted in Early Paintings on September 16, 2011| Leave a Comment »

I’m always surprised at how observant people are about my work, how they will be attracted to details or pieces that were one-of-a-kinds and hold onto that image long after it has been pushed into the far recesses of my mind.  It’s sort of like making an offhand remark and forgetting it but the person who heard it holds every word clearly in their memory.  I know I’ve had that sensation where I remember every detail of a moment or conversation that the other person has long forgotten. 

I had such a conversation this past weekend at the gallery talk  in Alexandria when I was approached by a couple who talked about a small piece from several years before that had a row of telephone poles along a road descending to a far horizon.  I have done only two or three of those paintings over the many years so I was somewhat surprised to hear their admiration for this small group of work, one that I have thought about resurrecting now and again but just never seem to get to. 

 I do so few that I couldn’t even remember the last one I had painted and decided to go looking for this anomaly.  Giving a quick scan through my images from the past several years I found nothing.  I knew they were small pieces so they might require more detail and more time to inspect the files.  This could take a while. 

Scanning through, I was surprised at some of the paintings and how distinctly different from my typical work they were.  The piece above, Time Flows, is such an example.  It is unlike anything I have done before or since.  I remember the texture on this piece as being very extreme, with deep pits that would catch and hold the pigment.  Painted for my 2007 show at the West End gallery,  it drew a lot of attention and was acquired quickly by a longtime collector so it didn’t stay around long enough for me to really live with so that it might become part of my regular painting vocabulary. 

 It simply came and went.

I always stop and look at this painting when I come across an image of  it, both with a bit of admiration and with wonder because it seems to have come from somewhere in myself I don’t remember or recognize.  It is a pure anomaly, one that I can never recreate.  And maybe that’s the way it shold be and remain.

Now, to find those telephone poles…

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Before…

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, tagged , on September 11, 2011| 6 Comments »

Back home, safe and sound.  Sweet.

First, many,many thanks to everyone who came out to the Gallery Talk  at the Principle Gallery yesterday.  You were a great group and made my time in front  of you  very easy and enjoyable.  I hope I was able to pass on somethings you might not have known or answered whatever questions there may have existed.  If not, let me know and I’ll try to rectify that. 

I could talk much more about yesterday’s talk  and how much I appreciate those who attended but I guess I should at least way in on the obvious part of this date.  It’s, of course, the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks .  I’m sure there’s not a soul out there who hasn’t been made to remember this fact by the almost constant coverage by the media over the last several days. 

In yesterday’s talk, I tried to avoid mentioning this, wanting to provide some sort of diversion, but somehow ended up talking about it anyway.  I think it came about when I was trying to explain how much the support and energy that I received from these folks over the years had transformed my life.  It reminded me very much of a feeling I felt on September 10 in 2001, the day before the attack.

It was a spectacular late summer day with hints of autumn in the air, a pure blue sky and a sun that was softly warm but not harsh.  Purely pleasant.  I remember walking around my pond that day.  I was at the point in my year when I was done with shows that I was going to do for the year.  Both had been wildly successful, beyond what I ever expected, and  I finally had a bit of time to relax and really think about this as I strolled around the pond.  I thought about how different my life was now, in 2001, than it was ten years before.  I had felt myself  a lost soul at that time, living a purposeless life with little prospect of doing much with it.  But over the years, art had come into my life and everything was different.  I found a form of expression, began to see clearer those things that were there in my life that had always been there and were core to my existence but I had somehow overlooked as I stumbled around in prior years. 

I found myself and a reason for living.  As I stopped by the pond with that clear sky above, it all struck me on that day, that September 10.  I felt myself the most fortunate man in the universe that day.  My life felt as complete and satisfying as I could imagine and I was filled with an overwhelming sense of appreciation for my good fortune.  I had trouble believing it was my life I was indeed living.

Of course, within 24 hours that feeling disappeared in the smoke and devastation of the events of that day.  It’s taken ten sometimes awful years to somewhat approach that feeling again and yesterday, as I felt the warmth of that group,  I talked about this feeling and my appreciation for them for allowing me to regain that feeling.  I don’t know that I made it clear but one doesn’t always speak easily about matters of grace.

The painting at the top was painted on that day and reflects very much the fullness and contentment I felt for my life at that point.  It is filled with that sense of peace and grace I hinted at above.  It came to be titled Before…  

There was a strange twist to this painting.  I always number my paintings so that I can more easily record and track them over time.  The serial number for that painting was 99-911.  I did nothing to make it fit this way, and in fact didn’t even recognize this number’s relationship to the date until some time later.  Just an eerie coincidence.

It  is a painting that I deeply regret ever letting go and though I know that the folks who now possess it have their own deep feelings for this piece, they will never know how much it still  lives with me, how much it reminds me that day, that September 10th when life seemed as good it could be and how rare and fleeting that moment can be.

Thanks again to everyone from yesterday.  Have a good and peaceful day.

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The Creeper

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Music, Video, tagged , on August 21, 2011| 1 Comment »

I came across a song yesterday, an old surf guitar instrumental from the Ventures called The Creeper, that reminded me of this painting of mine of the same title.  I had written about this painting before here a couple of years back but had not mentioned how it was one of the paintings that I regret selling.  This was part of the Exiles series that I painted in the mid 90’s, mostly grieving figures painted with segmented features. 

 It was the first real series I had painted and was the basis for my first solo show.  I think I only sold three of those pieces and regret having taken any of them from that group of work.  I think because those pieces were so much the product of a specific emotional state at a certain time, I will not be able to capture that exact feel again.  I have periodically painted figures in that style over the years since and  while they have certain charms, they lack the impact of these earlier pieces.

These few pieces are gone but at least I have images to take a look at when their memories start to creep in, much like that fellow above.

Here’s the song that reminded me of this painting, The Creeper from the Ventures.  This piece is very reminiscent of Wipeout ( with maybe a little Peter Gunn thrown in) but is really distinguished by some super organ work  from the great Leon Russell in an early appearance in 1964.  Give a listen– it’ll rev up your Sunday.

 

 

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Bradford County

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on August 15, 2011| 3 Comments »

I was going through a pile of old work, mostly rougher  stuff from when I first started painting that had small glimpses of promise but lacked real spark or cohesiveness in the way they came together, when I came across this piece from 1994.  It’s about 12″ by 16″ on rough Arches watercolor paper and has the words Bradford County written in pencil at the  bottom corner of the paper. 

It’s a piece that I always found attractive but seeing it really brought me to a stop.  I so recognized that time when it was painted and could now see several potential directions where my work might have headed other than the one it eventually followed. 

This piece was very much in a more traditional watercolor style, with no treatment of the paper and the colors pure.  The colors had not yet come around to the palette that I later adopted.  For instance, the sky is a single uncomplicated shade of blue.  There are no other colors, not even other blues in it.  I had yet to make the move to more complex colors even though there is a hint of it in the foreground and the hills.

It also is a depiction of a real place, as denoted by the Bradford County.  Growing up, we lived on Wilawana Road just a few short miles from the NY/PA border and if you followed the road into PA you found yourself in Bradford County.  That part of the border is at the base of steep hills and is filled with rural valleys that I spent many hours exploring.  This scene was purely based on that place even though it is not any one location there.  I had not yet made the leap into creating my own landscape, forming the felt space rather than real space of Ralph Fasanella that I had mentioned in an earlier post.

To me, this is a time capsule that takes me back to the time when I painted it.  It suggests potentials that seem a million miles away from where I finally landed at the present.  It shows the possibility of staying strictly as a traditonal watercolorist or painting solely as painter of reality.  A depicter of the what is with the proper colors and forms.  I wonder how my work might look today, how it might differ,  if I had followed any of those other possible routes for the work? 

 I suppose many of us can look back at certain points in our lives and see times much like the one captured for me in this simple painting, times when we are at a junction in our lives and must decide which path to follow.  I’m sure some of us would look at such a time with a certain level of regret but for me, I am happy with my decisions made at and after the point of this painting so for me this is a warm memory, a reminder of the path I was about to follow.

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Guenther Hears the Boogaloo Softly

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, Video, tagged on June 17, 2011| 3 Comments »

I came across this little piece that I had painted long ago, before I ever showed my work to anyone.  It’s a small little thing, barely 2″ by 3″ in size, but it’s a painting that I consider one of my favorites.  It’s not because of anything in the painting itself, although I do like the way it works visually.  Actually, it’s because I see an entire narrative in this piece and it always comes back as soon as I see it, even after many years.

I call this Guenther Hears the Boogaloo Softly.  The story I see here is a German soldier on patrol in the second World War, in a wintry forest,  perhaps in the Ardennes during the Battle of the Bulge.  He is separated from his group and as he is alone in the forest he suddenly hears a sound from deep in the woods, echoing softly through the frozen trees.  It is a piano and it is like nothing he has heard before.  It has a loping bassline that churns and pops and over it is a tap dance of notes that bounce and roll on the rhythm.  It’s American boogie woogie.  Somewhere unseen in the forest a piano is rolling out boogie woogie.

Guenther is transfixed and holds his breath to better hear the music that enchants him. A siren’s song.  He loses all thought of his mission and his duty.  He is engrossed by the music. 

I don’t go any further with this scenario in my mind.  There are obvious directions the story could take.  Guenther might allow the music to transfix him to the point he doesn’t hear the American patrol coming upon him.  Or he might throw down his weapon and flee.  But most likely, he would return to his patrol and  if he were lucky enough to survive the war, the memory of that music would haunt him for years, sending him on a search to recapture the sound of that moment in the forest.

I see it simply as a being about the transformative power of music and art, about how they unify humans despite our differences.  When we hear or see something, we don’t do so as a German or an American, as a democrat or a republican, as a Christian or a Muslim.  We react as a human to our individual perceptions.  Sometimes we cannot shake these other labels we carry with us but there are moments when our reaction is pure.  Which is what I see in this little bit of paint and paper, in Guenther’s reaction to the piano. 

Such a little bit of paint yet such a lot to say…

Here’s a little taste from one of the kings of boogie woogie from the 30’s and 40’s, Albert Ammons.

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Potential

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, tagged , on January 31, 2011| 2 Comments »

I had a nice email from a gentleman who told me about a prize his 16 year old daughter had recently won for one of her paintings.  I took a look at the piece and responded to him.  It was nice painting, nicely composed and had strong lines and color.  It was far ahead of anything I was doing at that age, especially by the virtue that it was complete.  I could see this young person doing more with their talents in the future.  I wrote him back and told him this but with my standard warning, one that I have written about  here before:  Potential and how it must be actively pursued with constant efforts and a consistent pushing of one’s abilities. 

I wrote him to tell him this, to let him know about some of the young talents I have seen come and go because they felt their talent was something that was in them and could be turned on and off with the flip of a switch.  I told him to tell her to look at the work required as a musician looks at rehearsals.  Perhaps even look at their talents as being like those of a musician, talents that need constant exercise in order to stay sharp and strong.  For instance, even if you have great innate talent, you can’t expect to play the violin like Itzhak Perlman if you don’t devote your talents in the same way as he does. A great part of his life is in nurturing his abilities.

I always feel like a sourpuss when I’m giving this advice.  Nobody wants to hear that they need to work harder.  Everyone wants to think that they have this great talent born within them and it will flow like a spigot whenever they so desire.  If only that were true.

I think you will find that those who succeed at the highest levels in any field are those who understand this need to constantly push and work their talents.  I’m sure there are exceptions but none come immediately to mind.  I wrote about this in a blog post when I first started this, over two years ago.  I wrote about something author John Irving had said about competing as a writer as he competed as a wrestler, putting in the same sort of work as though he were attempting to be an Olympic wrestler. 

Hard work.   It’s not glamorous especially in this world of instant gratification but it is a proven entity .

I’m showing the piece above to highlight this.  It’s a small painting that I did before I was showing in any galleries, in 1994.  At the time, it pleased me very much and I could have very easily kept painting in that style and been pretty happy, without much effort.  But there was a little voice in me that kept saying to push ahead and work harder, to see what I could accomplish with greater effort.  It became not an end but a stepping stone to move ahead.

That is how I hope this man’s daughter see her painting– as a stepping stone.  She may think it is the best thing she has ever done but if she is willing to push ahead and put in the effort, she will look at it someday as a mere step in her journey.

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In the Window

Posted in Early Paintings, Painting, Technique/History, tagged on January 11, 2011| Leave a Comment »

A question asked of me this weekend inspired me to go back into my archives and pull out the images of a few pieces done several years back.  I was asked if I used this time of the year as a starting point for new work and I said that I often did,  using it as a time to begin new ideas that I want to try.  I explained that it was important for me to continue trying new things as it excited me in the studio and that this excitement was important to all of my work.  This new work provides a vibrancy that permeates all my work and helps me find the new in compositions that I have painted in the past.

I explained that I liked to try new concepts in series in most years and that some are more embraced than others and become part of my regular painting vocabulary for years.  The Red Roof series is such a series.  I have painted examples in this series for several years and it has become engrained.  The Archaeology series is another. 

Other series last but a season.  While they may be popular from a sales standpoint,  they soon exit my routine.  The In the Window series is an example of such a series.  Done in 2005, they were a series of paintings that featured simple interior scenes with large windows that were highlighted by examples of my typical landscapes.  The idea was that the interior scene acted as a setting to show the landscapes in a different manner, much like the setting for a piece of  jewelry dictates how a gem is seen.  The gem here was  my landscape.

This painting shown on the left, In the Window: Dream Away, was the first piece.  It seemed to jump off the paper on which it was painted.  Very vibrant.  The setting of the window pushed the scene of the tree atop the mound overlooking the water out of the frame and seemed to intensify it.  I was immediately taken with the concept and a number of others soon followed, including the one at the top.  These pieces sold pretty well but they eventually lost steam for me from a creative standpoint.  While I still felt that they were vibrant , I sensed that I had done as much as I could with the concept and didn’t want it to become labored and tired.  My excitement was passing and I wanted to stop near a peak rather than at a low when the work was completely played out when I was viewing it as a toil rather than a joyous activity.

I still feel excitement personally when I see these pieces from this time and I know they are of a certain time for me.  I want them to stand as they are in my body of work.   As I described this this past weekend, I explained that the interesting thing about stopping a series is that it creates a finite number of pieces within it.  They become more distinctive over time, more representative of a certain time in my own artistic continuum.  So while these series, such as the In the Window series, are short-lived they have a longer viewpoint.

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Lost in Blue

Posted in Early Paintings, Favorite Things, tagged on January 10, 2011| Leave a Comment »

Moonlight is sculpture.

–Nathaniel Hawthorne

****************************

I find myself with nothing to say this morning.  I am still somewhat seething from listening to media reports from Tucson, hearing the new spin from those on the defensive.  It bothers me that I allowed myself to be pulled emotionally back into the fray caused by this event.  It distracts my mind and keeps me from what I want to be doing so I try to block it out.  Instead I pull up this older piece and remember it and try to focus on the feeling I take from it.

It’s a painting that I’ve always liked from the moment I finished it.  The sculptural quality of the sky  gives the piece a very three-dimensional feel and heightens the sense that it is more than a painting, more like an object.  A relic captured behind glass.  This is something I started to seek in my earlier work and have maintained up to the present day, this sense of being more than a painting of a scene.  A relic.  An icon.  In this case, I feel that it truly works. 

I am pacified greatly by this piece, as though the blues in the sky and water have an absorbent quality that pulls away the tension, allows anxiety to easily slip away.  There is simplicity here and the chaos and idiocy that appears rampant in this world is nowhere to be seen.  All is still.  All is connected.

Okay.  I’m calmer now and maybe tomorrow will bring a more interesting day for the blog.  I’m hoping.

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