Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Painting’ Category

Edge of Light

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on October 22, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a painting I just completed yesterday, an 8″ by 26″ piece on paper, that I’m calling Edge of Light.  It’s another piece that I am showing at my upcoming show, Toward Possibility,that opens November 6 at the the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA.

There is a lot that I could talk about in this painting.  It has great underlying texture with swirls of chaotic fingerpaint-like slashes in the gesso.  It has great depth into the picture plane that gives one the feeling of being able to fully enter the landscape.  It has elements I seldom use in the stone walls of the short cliffs next to the water.  It has rich colors and a winding road that pulls the viewer along.

But the element that stands out for me is the balance in this piece between the light generated from the hazy sun that burns through on the right side of the painting and the darkness in the color and shade of the left.  When I look at a painting like this, one that is more horizontal, I always look at it as though there is a fulcrum underneath it, as though the painting were a teeter-totter and it rested on a support which allowed it to pivot upward or downward depending on which end had the greater weight.  What I am trying to do is make the painting on that fulcrum, balancing elements so that it seems to hover effortlessly level above this pivot point.

In this painting, this is all about balancing the light between the two opposing sides.  The greater the light coming from one side, the greater the darkness in the other side.  The darkness on the left makes the light coming from the other side appear brighter.  However, in a wide piece like this, if the the contrast is too great, the lighter side becomes too dominant, too heavy in a way,  and the balance on the fulcrum is broken.  I think this painting has that balance that I’m seeking.

I don’t know if this makes sense to anyone but myself.  Like a lot of things I do, this is a matter of feel and trying to describe how feel works often requires using analogies that may not always make sense.  In the end, I simply paint and if I’ve done all I can with the feel of which I talk, the viewer will easily take in the painting without considering things like balancing on a pivot point.

Read Full Post »

Product of the Past

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on October 20, 2010| 3 Comments »

This is a new painting, just finished yesterday.  It’s an 18″ by 18″ canvas that is a very simple tonal composition, letting the atmosphere created between the sky and the burnt orange field that runs to the horizon create the impact of the painting.  It has a very clear air about it that gives it the sense of being a very distinct moment in time.

It has a bittersweet feel, at least in the way I see it.  The openness of the landscape and the stream that runs to a far horizon indicates a hopeful, forward looking quality.  Optimistic.   But the colors in the sky and the field have tinges of darkness that hint at an underlying deeper and less optimistic quality.  Perhaps the shaded thinking that comes with experience.

The tree itself, for me, has the hallmarks of these same traits.  It is bright and upward moving yet it is bent and twisted from factors that have influenced its growth over its life on that little mound next to a small stream.  The hardships of its past are written in its appearance.  Yet  it remains upward moving, pulled toward light. 

From the last brushstroke that touched the canvas, this is how I saw this piece– as a product of its past, determined by how it weathered its experience. 

It is bent.  It is twisted.  Yet it stands tall and hopeful, open to a new day.

Well, that’s how I see it.  Maybe its just a twisty tree on an orange mound.

Read Full Post »

Strange Days Indeed

Posted in Favorite Things, Painting on September 25, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Strange Days Indeed 2005

I came across this piece while searching for images for the request mentioned in yesterday’s post.  It’s called Strange Days Indeed and is a small work on paper, measuring only 5″ by 7.5″, from 2005.  This painting always catches my eye.  The rhythm of the rolling fields flows so effortlessly into the blowing leaves of the red tree above that it makes the whole piece feel in motion.  It has a real ease about it that makes the sight of a blue sun in the sky seem almost natural.

When I looked at it yesterday, I wondered where it was now and how its owner looked at the painting.  Did they even see that blue sun and if so, how did their mind rationalize it, make it translate as normal?  Or did they see it and enjoy the oddity of it set against the scene below?  When I look at it now, even though I can see and recognize that the blue sun is out of the ordinary, it is indistinguishable in my mind from any other representation of a sun that I might incorporate in a painting.

For me, the strange thing is that others do as well.   But I wonder about this painting and its owner.  What is the primary thing they see when they look at it?

Read Full Post »

Summing Up

Posted in Biographical, Painting on September 24, 2010| 5 Comments »

I had an inquiry yesterday from a museum, asking for more photos and information on my work in order to give them a well-rounded sense of my work.  So, I sat down and began going back through my work over the years, trying to determine how I might encapsulate what I do in a condensed manner that gives them a complete look and satisfies me.

I struggled with the task.  Choosing work that sums me up was difficult.  Can I sum up my work in one or two or twenty or a hundred images?  How do you define yourself at what you yourself consider a midpoint? 

For me, it all feels the same, as though it is part of a continuum.  I see differences through the years but I know that each painting was done with pretty much the same mindset and the same critical eye during the process which makes them equal in my mind which gives them the consistency for their audience that I seek.  Maybe it’s that word egalitarian coming up again, but I want  there to be no difference in the quality and emotional impact between the smallest, most affordable painting and the largest, more expensive work. 

And then there are the series I’ve done through the years.  Obviously, the ubiquitous Red Tree.  But there is also the Red Roofs.  Red Chairs.  Archaeology.  And many other less organized, recurrent groups of work featuring sailboats, cityscapes and small, lone figures.  Or the other figurative work featuring what I call the Outlaws or the early Exiles.  How many of these pieces fall into the category of rounding out an overview of the work?

How do you completely sum up yourself in the most condensed way?

 I had this come up a few years back in nother way.  After a very nice, well written article in the local newspaper, I was contacted by the producers of a national talk show set in NYC on one of the major news networks.  They had seen the article and the host felt I would be a perfect fit for the show which featured a panel of guests from various fields in a fast-paced, short sound bite-y format.  The host would shoot out a question and go quickly to a guest who would have 15 or 20 seconds to give a full answer. 

So, the producers interviewed me separartely then finished with about 20 minutes of the main producer pretending to be the host and throwing questions at me quickly. After we had been doing this for the 20 minutes, with her constantly urging me to be faster with my responses, I was pretty frustrated and finally asked her what she wanted from me.

She said she wanted to summarize what my career was about in 15 seconds. 

 That pretty much ended the interview and, needless to say, I didn’t go to NYC for the show.  I was actually relieved but it made me wonder how someone could adequately sum up themselves in such a short manner.  I still haven’t figured it out and I guess I’ll have to think about this some more.

Read Full Post »

Toward Possibility

Posted in Painting, Technique/History, tagged , on September 18, 2010| Leave a Comment »

Well,  I am well into preparations for an upcoming show at the Kada Gallery in Erie, Pennsylvania.  The show opens October 16.  I have decided to call the show Toward Possibility which is the name of the painting above.  It is a 24″ by 48″ painting on canvas and has been a favorite of mine for some time.

The title of the show refers to the possibility offered in the paintings, the pure chance of existence and imagination.  These landscapes that I paint are not pure products of this world.  I can stop and step back to analyze them with a cool eye  and say this or that element in the painting doesn’t or couldn’t exist in the real world.  But my goal and hope is to make them possible in the eyes and minds of the viewers, to create a harmony in the elements that allows the viewer to comfortably assume the reality of the landscape.  To create a vocabulary of elements that speak of the possibility of this other world.  That is the possibility to which I refer in the title.

Hopefully, I am moving more and more toward that possibility.

Read Full Post »

Explorer

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on September 10, 2010| 2 Comments »

Well, off on one of my drive-fests, first to Asheville then to Alexandria then home, all within 48 hours. Just the way I like it.

This is a painting that is going to the Haen Gallery in Asheville.  Titled Explorer, it’s a 30″ by 40″ canvas that I’ve been very proud of as it sat waiting in the studio.  It is a piece that, if I had to sum up in one painting what my work has been to this point, would fit the bill nicely.  It has a real feeling of completeness, of being a fully mature and realized piece, as though it exists in only that moment without any thought or deference to the past or future.

I think that might be what I’m looking for in my work-  a self-contained world in its own present time and place, separate  from the world we know.  It’s own sense of landscape, of light and color– all familiar yet apart.  But welcoming.

I could go on wading in esoterica but I’ll spare you that. Let’s just say that it’s a piece that really hits for me. 

Anyway, time to hit the road.  If you’re in the Alexandria area tomorrow, Saturday, stop into the Principle Gallery for my gallery talk or just to say “Hi!” 

 Hope to see you there.

Read Full Post »

Bounty

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , on September 9, 2010| 1 Comment »

This is a new painting that is going with me down to the Principle Gallery.  It’s a 10″ by 30″ canvas that  I call Bounty.  I chose the title because there is an idealized feel to the painting, not necessarily a representation of  how things are but how they might be, in a land that is rich in everything but greed.  It feels like a meditation on sharing the richness of the land with everyone. 

 Call it an egalitarian daydream.

Egalitarian.  It’s a word that has been in my mind lately.   It’s not a popular word or concept these days, oddly enough.  The word has evolved to a point where people think of it as another way of saying welfare state or that other dreaded word,socialism.  This is unfortunate because the idea of equality, a society without classes,  is such a beautiful concept and one that was one of the legs that our nation first stood on. 

 Of course, there was never such a place.  Not in post-Revolution America or France or Russia.  Aspirations, yes.  Practical application, no. 

Again, unfortunate.  But one can dream of such a place.  If it exists, I hope it feels like this…

Read Full Post »

Under the Mountains

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on September 7, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting that I finished at the request of a collector in North Carolina.  It was an interesting request, one that piqued my imagination enough to accept the commission.  He wanted a very specific sized painting built on a hinged frame that would cover an unsightly circuit breaker box located in the middle of a wall in a well used room.

I found the idea that the painting would be part of a utilitarian object, something that had a real practical use,  intriguing.  But I didn’t want this purpose to outweigh the painting itself.  The painting had to be the dominant aspect of the whole, not a mere afterthought or pure decoration.

The client had specific requests that had to be addressed. First of all, it needed too be one size, which ended up being an 18″ wide by 42″ high canvas.  This size and proportion would dictate how the painting was composed.  He wanted it to be part of the Archaeology series as he had uncovered a number of old items in the ground around the old farmhouse he was renovating.  But he didn’t want to not have the below-the-surface area overwhelm the painting, desiring a smaller presence for the assorted items.  He liked my blue night skies and moons and red trees that were spindly like the pink mimosas in the yard of the old farmhouse.  The two red trees furthest away have touches of pink in them.

The part that I wrestled with the most was having a night skyline in the painting,  of which he had expressed an interest.  At first, I was hesitant as I had always seen the Archaeology pieces as being beyond the time of man, at a point when we’ve entered the realm of dinosaurs and exist only in the evidence we’ve left behind.  The idea of having evidence of man still existing rocked me at first but then I began to think that it might be interesting to see how it would play.  After all, we have certainly created a wealth of underground archaeology up to this point.  And maybe I was being a little too cynical in assuming that a time would come when we cease to walk the Earth.

After painting in the buildings, which vaguely represent the Asheville skyline especially with the far outline of the mountains behind, I was really pleased.  It gave me the feeling of two worlds, two histories, exisiting simultaneously, one above the ground and the other beneath it.  One history, the past, is already written and the other is being written in the present.  It really seemed to work,  filling out a new narrative and giving the piece a different depth.

I began to see that the painting had become one of my own paintings, beyond the desires of the collector, which was exactly what I wanted for it.  When people ask about commissions that is the point I try to get across– that I have to satisfy myself,  with the painting, have to feel that it has its own life,   before I would even consider showing it to them.  And this piece does just that.  It feels alive and vibrant to me.

Now it can move on to its new life.

Read Full Post »

Delayed Satisfaction

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings on September 4, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a small painting, a 9″ by 12″ canvas, that I just finished.  If someone were to ask me how long it took to finish I would have to anwer that it took over a year.  Quite a long time for such a little piece.

Actually I finished most of it a little over a year ago and found myself kind of painted into a corner.  I like what I had painted thus far but the mound that dominated the center seemed too tall for the proportion of the whole painting and I just couldn’t see how it could be finished in a manner that would be satisfying.  So I hesitatingly put it aside.

For a year or so it has sat on a cabinet next to my painting table until this past week when I thought it had been there too long, just sitting in my line of sight whenever I turned.  It was a persistent reminder of a failed attempt and the time had come to end the nagging feeling it cast on me.  I would finish it and one way or another be done with it, satisfied or not.

So I painted in the tree and touched up the clouds a bit.  No expectation of anything.  Just get it done.

But to my surprise it worked.  The proportion seemed okay with the tree, much different than I had seen it in my head for the past year, and the painting seemed suddenly to pop.  There was a rush of satisfaction through me.  It was so much more than I had hoped, far exceeding the expectations that had diminished over the year.  I had only seen it with one result when it had a much better result hiding in plain sight.

Like many things, there are often results that can exceed our expectations if we just go ahead with our plans and finish them, not putting them aside before they reveal their true potential to us.

Read Full Post »

The Transformation

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged on September 2, 2010| 1 Comment »

I’m busy at work, putting the final touches on several paintings that are strewn around the studio.  The final bits of color and detail don’t take a long time to put on the surface but the transformation to the painting is remarkable.  Sometimes it takes a piece that seems stagnant and lifeless to my eye, that seems to have lost direction, and suddenly imbues it with spirit, making it seem vibrant and alive before my eyes.

For me, it’s the most exciting time in the process and the one that most often baffles me, leaving me wondering how such a change occurred in just a few strokes of the brush.

This is a new piece that is an example.  As I worked on this piece, a 12″ x 24″ canvas, and let the composition come together, there were things I really liked about it.  The symetry was strong and obvious and the color was sharp and rich.  I could see where it was going but it seemed to be lacking.

I thought that perhaps adding the tree would do it but seeing the silhouette did nothing to animate the surface.  As I built up the layers of color, I still wasn’t feeling it.  Then as I put on the final touches that highlighted the edges of the foliage, there was a huge change in the painting.  Those final touches gave added depth and in this depth, the whole surface seemed to unite, coming together as one entity.  It became alive and vibrant.  

I sat at my work table with it before me and shook my head.  I’ve done this many, many times yet I am still amazed when I see this tranformation take place.  Even though it’s a small event late in the process, it is that moment that gives me the ultimate gratification in what I do.  I don’t know if my words can describe the feeling I’m trying to describe.  It seems like such a nebulous thing, like trying to describe something that you didn’t quite see and don’t really recognize to someone who didn’t see it at all.

Well, that’s what I do, I guess.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »