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Archive for the ‘Influences’ Category

What a Time It Is

Posted in Favorite Things, Influences, tagged , on October 9, 2008| Leave a Comment »

 What a world…

Stock markets crashing, bitter vitriol and the worst part of our American soul comes forward in ignorance and intolerance.  My blood pressure rises and I need to be reminded of the common bonds and ideals that trump hatred and anger and make us proud to call America our home.  Help me out, Uncle Walt…

 

America

 

Centre of equal daughters, equal sons,
All, all alike endear'd, grown, ungrown, young or old,
Strong, ample, fair, enduring, capable, rich,
Perennial with the Earth, with Freedom, Law and Love,
A grand, sane, towering, seated Mother,
Chair'd in the adamant of Time.
           ---- Walt Whitman

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Red Chairs in the Trees

Posted in Influences, Technique/History, tagged on October 7, 2008| Leave a Comment »

       During every show I inevitably get a number of questions about the meaning of the Red Chair especially when it’s suspended in a tree.  For anyone interested, I will pass along how the chair came to be aloft.

Growing up, we lived in the country in a large isolated house with an old barn across the road.  One summer when I was 8 or 9,  I came across a dead woodchuck laying next to the barn.  As the summer progressed and he dried out, a vine passed through his body and by summer’s end was suspended a few feet in the air.  To the eyes of a 8 year old this was something magical.  I was struck by the power of the earth to reclaim its creatures.  Everything seemed very ephemeral after that…

The idea of a tree growing through an object such as a chair, which is very representative of human existence, is a continuation of that early fascination.  It wasn’t until I had painted several pieces with the hanging chair that I began to also see the symbolism of the empty chair, which in some cultures represents the recently deceased.  That is what I see now– the family members who have passed on.  Again, this is my interpretation of this work.  I enjoy hearing what other people see in the work because many times it’s completely different from what I see but just as valid.  I often look at some pieces in a whole new light after hearing a new view.

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Solitary Man

Posted in Influences, Video, tagged , , , on October 6, 2008| Leave a Comment »

This is a short film featuring some paintings I have done featuring a lone character that inhabits my world, often seen from a great distance.  It also features the song, “Solitary Man” from the late-great Johnny Cash, a hero of mine for over 40 years.  His “American” series is one of the great pieces of self-expression I’ve ever heard, seen or felt.  His was a truly unique voice in American music and he remains an influence…

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Strange Victory

Posted in Influences, tagged , on October 1, 2008| Leave a Comment »

One of my favorite poems and an influence on a number of my paintings:

 

Strange Victory

 

To this, to this, after my hope was lost,

  To this strange victory;

To find you with the living, not the dead,

  To find you glad of me;

To find you wounded even less than I,

  Moving as I across the stricken plain;

After the battle to have found your voice

  Lifted above the slain.

                                                                                                 —  Sara Teasdale

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