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Archive for the ‘Influences’ Category

Eastern Influence

Posted in Influences, tagged , , , , , on December 3, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Into StillnessAt my first solo show, in 2000, at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA, I was approached by many people all asking the same question: “Can you tell us about your Japanese influences?”  If it had been one or two people I wouldn’t have thought anything of the question but this was like 30 or 40 people all asking the same question.

I explained that there wasn’t any overt connection or influence from any particular Japanese artist.  This was true.  I had seen prints, obviously, but hadn’t really looked deeply into them.  I didn’t even know who Hokusai or Hiroshige were.  Didn’t know much at all, to be honest.

I was more influenced by the haiku poetry form, such as those from Basho.  I loved its simplicity and spareness of form, the way those three short lines of verse could create a real sense of atmosphere.  You could feel the sense of quiet that I sought in my work.  I even had a series of paintings early in painting career titled after the haiku.

I think that the works of Japanese masters such as Hokusai and Hiroshige carry this same feeling,the same that is instilled in many haikus.  There is a placidness, a calmness that permeates the work.  I was honored that people saw a similar quality in my work even though the similarity was coincidental.

Pieces such as the one shown here, Into Stillness, are among my favorites to paint because of the calm attitude that is required to make the piece come alive.  I can only paint them successfully when I am able to shake off all cares and troubles and find a point of stillness.  They really don’t come as easily as I might wish.

But I can hope…

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Necropolis

Posted in Influences, Recent Paintings, tagged , , , , , , , , , , , on November 30, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Seems Like a New SunThis piece, Seems Like a New Sun, is part of the show currently hanging at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC.  It’s a cityscape, a genre I enjoy mainly because of the abstract quality of shape and color that is formed by building up the structures.

At the opening for the show, someone asked if this painting was of a necropolis, a city of the dead or cemetery.  They cited the lack of windows and doors and said that it reminded them of those in Paris and New Orleans, where many of the graves are housed above-ground in beautiful small mausoleums.  This kind of took me  back a little because the idea had never entered my mind at any point in the creation of this piece but when I looked again it made perfect sense, in more than the obvious way.

I have always been attracted to cemeteries of all sorts and when we travel (a rarity these days) Cheri and I generally find a cemetery and walk around it, admiring the stones and mausoleums.  I read the names and epitaphs, trying to discern what sort of life they indicate.  Some find this morbid but I find it fascinating and very peaceful and in some ways, invigorating and reinforcing of life.  There is a lot to be said in the way a culture treats its dead.

We have a beautiful cemetery in our home area, Woodlawn Cemetery, that was created in the heyday of “burial parks” in the mid-19th century.  It has a rolling landscape with beautiful old growth trees and meandering roads. Very nice.  It’s home now to Mark Twain, Hal Roach, Ernie Davis and others.  Adjoining it is a national cemetery where there are the remains of a number of Confederate soldiers from the Civil War who perished in the notorious prisoner of war camp at Elmira.  There is history everywhere if we only look.

This is Recoleta Cemetery in Buenos Aires, Argentina, where Evita Peron is its most famous resident.  Quite a striking sight amid the sprawl of the living city.  Maybe there is some validity in the viewer’s question…Recoleta Cemetery, Buenos Aires

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Van Gogh’s Irises

Posted in Influences, tagged , on November 29, 2008| 3 Comments »

 

The first time I remember being truly struck emotionally by a piece of art was many years ago at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC, long before I ever dreamt of being able to paint.  I came across this Van Gogh's IrisesVincent Van Gogh painting, one of his Iris pieces.  It seemed to literally vibrate on the wall.  I was mesmerized, to the point of nausea and a throbbing headache that made me exit the room.  

I often think about that experience, especially when I speak to high school or college classes where it seems they are more intent in their subject matter than in the way they express their emotions in the paint itself.  This piece is a merely a group of irises in a pitcher, probably a subject painted through the ages by thousands of painters.  Hardly anything earth-shaking there.  But it’s in the paint and the strokes that the emotion burns through.  The thick application of the background and the rich lines of the foliage all express much more than the mere subject.  To me, this piece is brimming with desire and heartbreak, love and anger– a spectrum of human experience. 

So I try to get kids to look beyond the subject and try to see what is really contained in the surface of any painting.  After all, a pitcher of irises may say much more than it seems.

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Gratitude

Posted in Influences, Quote, tagged , on November 27, 2008| 1 Comment »

harlequin1  

    “At times our own light goes out and is rekindled by a spark from another person.
Each of us has cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted the flame within us.”

                         -Albert Schweizer

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Odd Bodkins Blue Skies

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Technique/History, tagged on November 26, 2008| 4 Comments »

odd bodkins blue skies

Well, it’s the day before Thanksgiving and I’m in the studio on a wintry morning, getting ready to go to work on a couple of commissioned pieces.  I’m watching a group of deer that are laying down in the yard outside my window, not quite ready to start their day.  My studio is surrounded by woods and this is a group of deer that have occupied my property for many generations.  We get along pretty well.

I spent a little time this morning looking at some older small pieces that were done before I started showing my work publicly.  I sometimes do this when I’m starting to think about where the work might be headed in  the future, something that I focus on at this point in the year.  It’s always interesting to see how the work has progressed, how the way the pieces are painted has evolved and how some elements remain and how some stayed behind, at least thus far.

The piece above struck my eye this morning.  It’s called Odd Bodkins Blue Skies and was done in 1994.  I can see my technique coming into shape and the beginning use of what I call complex colors.  I’m very pleased by the strength and clarity of this piece.  I think it has held up very well and even though it doesn’t resemble my typical work I can see my hand in this piece.  This piece always makes me smile when I come across it.

Maybe it will spur something new for the coming year, maybe not.  But it’s part of my history and in some way remains in me.  And for that, I am thankful.  A day early…

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Thomas Wolfe and Effort

Posted in Influences, tagged , , on November 25, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Thomas Wolfe Home AshevilleDuring our stay in Asheville our hotel was located directly next to the Thomas Wolfe house and memorial.  Our room looked directly down on the roof and you had the sense of hovering over it like a ghost or angel flowing over the landscape.  I wished I had heeded the advice of my high school creative writing teacher who had pointedly suggested that I needed to read Wolfe, specifically Look Homeward Angel. Of course, I had other concerns, other fish to fry, and the book sat on my shelves for over thirty years. So I stood at my hotel window, perched above his home, wishing I knew a little more about him and his life.

So I did a search and the first quote I came across struck me immediately because it spoke of exactly how I feel about effort and talent.  Talent is only valuable when used to its fullest. His quote:

 

If a man has a talent and cannot use it, he has failed. If he has a talent and uses only half of it, he has partly failed. If he has a talent and learns somehow to use the whole of it, he has gloriously succeeded, and won a satisfaction and a triumph few men ever know

                  – Thomas Wolfe, The Web and the Rock                                                                                           

There is a book out that I referenced in my gallery talk, titled Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell.  He states that a common trait among highly successful people is the 10000 hour principle.  To reach the farthest reach of their talents, each put in 10000 hours at their skill, making the absolute most of their abilities.  He uses examples such as the Beatles, Bill Gates, and others.  There may be flaws in the premise and in the book itself but I think the principle is a good example of Wolfe’s quote.

Interesting…



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Saturday Morning Roundup

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , on November 15, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Island of Hope

Well, it’s Saturday morning and I’m plugging away in the studio, finishing up the last details for my upcoming show at the Haen Gallery.  There’s always a sense of relief and gratification in finally having a show completed but those feelings are soon replaced by slightly shaky nerves.  You see, in the studio while the work is in process, the work is completely mine and in my control.  Once it leaves to go to galleries it changes and becomes something quite different, something new and out of my control.  It’s exciting in a way but there’s always that fear that people won’t see what I see in the work and they won’t connect with it.  All I can do, however, is put the work and myself out there and let the chips fall where they may.

The piece above is Island of Hope and is a 10″ by 30″ canvas.  I use the island often as a representation of a safe haven or a place that other aspire to from afar, a place of hope and desire.  I particularly like this piece , especially the feel and atmosphere of it.

Anyway, it is a Saturday morning and we all could use something to get away to.  Here’s a little classic Bob Dylan to help.  Enjoy!

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Follow Your Path

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on November 13, 2008| Leave a Comment »

Follow Your PathI use the path or trail often in my pieces as a metaphor for the paths we follow in our own lives.  Sometimes the trail winds through wide open plains and sometimes it leads to a break in the forest.  This symbolizes, to me at least, the breakthrough moment that is there for anyone awake enough to see.  An epiphany perhaps.  A moment of grace.  I think we all have these moments where our paths ahead become clearer, more evident, and we realize that maybe we do have missions to accomplish here on Earth.  Some may be smaller than others but all are important.  

The trees in the piece shown here, Follow Your Path, always remind me of an ancient Hittite belief that trees grow from the center of the Earth and grow out and support the sky.  I see them that way in my works, as structural supports.

Follow Your Path is an 8″ by 16″ canvas and is also part of my upcoming show, Now…, at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, NC, opening November 22.

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Archaeology

Posted in Influences, Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on November 12, 2008| Leave a Comment »

 

Under the Same Sun

 

This is a piece titled Archaeology: Under the Same Sun which is part of my Archaeology series of paintings that was new for this year.  It came about early in January when I was struggling to find the direction in which my work was headed.  By that I mean, I am always trying to find ways to expand the scope of my work, to create something new in the work that will excite me in the studio and, by extension, viewers in the galleries.

 I really felt lost this year though and every day was a battle to create anything that seemed alive.  I reverted to a exercise that my 5th grade art teacher in Chemung, NY taught me back in what must be 1969.  His name was John Baglini and he was pretty cool, especially to a 5th grader.  He drove a late 50’s Porsche, drew comic books and always had really neat projects for the class.  It was the year of the moon landing and we made a huge papier-mache lunar landscape.  He would sometimes give us a sheet of paper and would have us start at the bottom and fill the paper.  He told us to draw a junkyard, to fill the sheet with items that we knew, to stack them from bottom to top.  It was a great exercise that made me think of how one item related to the next and how small detail contributed to the whole image.  It has been something I have used for nearly forty years so when I felt blocked this time I pulled out some large sheets of paper and started doodling at the bottom.

 I did this for several days and eventually the pieces went from masses of objects to a smaller group of objects that grew upward into a landscape.  It was at this point that I began to wonder why I hadn’t painted in this fashion before.  It made such sense.  It allowed me paint my trademark landscapes but to add a new dimension.  From a distance one can tell its my work but upon closer inspection one finds a new level of detail that reveals something new with each subsequent look.  It also allowed me to paint detail in a very free flowing manner, one object leading to the next.

There was also the opportunity to create a new vocabulary with the repetition of objects within the context of my paintings.  There are a number of objects that make appearances in all or most of the paintings of this series.  Peace symbols, shoes, bottles, the letter “G”, etc.  

The response to this work has been wonderful and its been interesting to see how people study the work.  The piece above will be part of my show at the Haen Gallery in Asheville, opening November 22.

Below is a detail from another of the Archaeology series:

Archaeology Detail

 

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Ring of Fire

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, Video, tagged , , , , on November 9, 2008| 2 Comments »

Just thought on a Sunday morning I would throw out a small bit of Johnny Cash, someone who I have unabashedly idolized for over forty years.  This song, though earlier in the decade, reminded me of Cash’s TV show of the late 60’s and the the incredibly diverse talent that would appear.  The very best of rock, pop, soul and country would show up every week.  It reminds me how our explosion of media access has separated everything into niches, neatly labeled and put apart.  As a kid living in the country, I remember being glued to my little radio, listening our local AM station, WENY, and hearing guys like Johnny Cash one minute then the next the Rolling Stones and after that the Doors then Otis Redding, all topped off by Frank Sinatra. Or maybe Barry Sadler singing “The Ballad of the Green Beret”.  Or the 1910 Fruitgum Company.   What great diversity!  And the funny thing is that it seemed to make complete sense, that the transition and flow from one song to another was not abrupt or shocking. It forced the young mind to find the common thread and grab it.  

This is not to condemn today or glorify yesterday.  Each is what they are.  Just a memory.  It’s Sunday, so relax and give a listen to the Man in Black.

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