Feeds:
Posts
Comments

Archive for the ‘Recent Paintings’ Category

Solace of Labor

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 16, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a small piece that I’m delivering today to the Principle Gallery in Alexandria.  Painted on ragboard, the image is a little over 5″ square and is titled Solace of Labor.

I really like this piece a lot, on a very personal level.  i suppose all my work is somewhat personal but, in this piece, I really feel as though I am the red tree here and the fields before it represent the work I’ve done.  The color of the piece has a calming, quiet effect and gives me the feel of the solace of the title.  It is a feeling much like that which I get when I collectively look back at the work, one of quiet pride of a task completed to my own satisfaction, knowing I had done my best and could do no more.

It also has a feel that takes me back to the very first work that I showed publicly many years back yet it still feels like today.  I feel the continuity of self through that time in this piece.  I guess what I mean by that,  is that even though the work has evolved over the years there is a line of continuity that runs through it and in this piece I can see it come full circle.

I don’t know if that makes sense to anyone but me.  I guess it doesn’t matter.  As I’ve said before, if I could say or write what I’m trying to say with my paintings, I wouldn’t need to paint.

But until I can write what I want to get across, I will paint.  Tomorrow.  Back in the studio after a couple of days on the road. 

I can’t wait…

Read Full Post »

That’s The Way (The World Goes Round)

Posted in Recent Paintings, Video, tagged , , on April 14, 2010| Leave a Comment »

I was sitting at the computer the other day, going through the images of several new pieces that will be going with me tomorrow when I travel to a couple of the galleries that represent me.  This piece was still untitled and  I sat there, staring at it and trying to determine what it was saying to me, something that would give it a unique moniker.  As I struggled, a song came on the stereo and I had my title.

It was from my long-time ( and I mean, long-time) favorite John Prine.  It was That’s The Way The World Goes Round and it just felt right.  There’s a line in the song, …naked as the eyes of a clown…, that always I always seem to hear when the song is playing, regardless of what I’m doing or how occupied my mind is.  There’s something in the song that triggers an innate alarm so that at the moment that line is aboout to be delivered my mind pushes aside whatever it is doing and stops to listen.

This piece seems to fit that line for me.  There’s a festive feel in the colors of the fields and the confetti-like sky but there’s a distant feeling there as well.  The dichotomy of a clown. 

So it has a title now and one that I very much like.  The painting is a 12″ by 36″ canvas and will be at the Principle Gallery in Alexandria, VA  on Friday.

Here’s a version of the song from John Prine, filmed many years ago as he sat around a kitchen table with friends.  It’s not a complete version and it’s interrupted with chit-chat but it’s charming and humorous.  Makes me want to sit around and swap songs with him…

Read Full Post »

Light Imminent

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged on April 13, 2010| Leave a Comment »

This is a painting titled Light Imminent that I’ve been working on for several months, on and off.  I used it some time back in a short film I put together in which I was working on this piece in an earlier stage of its development.

It’s a pretty big piece, 20″ by 60″ on canvas, so it sort of dominated the space where it sat incomplete for a long time, always in the edge of my vision.  It was, once again, a matter of letting a piece sit until it was ready to be completed, to have the last few pieces added which brings everything together.  The time it sat allowed me to really take in and weigh all the parts and make subtle decisions about the finishing touches.

For some pieces, this time spent resting is invaluable.  There is no rush to finish and options are given a chance to grow.  There are pieces that don’t require this period of mulling, that have an inevitability from the first few strokes that tell me where it wants to go.  There’s a sense of satisfaction in both types of painting.  Those that sit have the satisfaction of seeing the idea and feel of the piece take shape over time.  There’s a real sense of contemplation in this work.  Those that take shape quickly have the satisfaction of sudden birth, a burst of energy that takes form and becomes alive before your eyes.

I see the contemplative nature of the slower process in this painting.  It’s in little things that I probably am the only to notice.  A sharper edge here or there.  The modeling and strokework of the central tree.  A stroke or two added in the sky to bring the light to higher effect.  Little things.

Now I’m in the last few days of taking it in before it leaves to go out in the world.  Hopefully, it will find someone who sees some of what I see in it…

Read Full Post »

Between Worlds

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on April 6, 2010| 3 Comments »

I call this recently finished piece Between Worlds.  It’s a 12″ by 24″ canvas and contains several of the elements I often use in my work.  The omnipresent red tree.  The simple red roofed house without window or door.  The patterned patchwork of the fields.  The curling path leading into the landscape.

I like the feel of this piece.  I find a great calmness and comfort in the colors of the sky even though it appears to be composed of chaos in the form of the short, choppy strokes used.  The fields below have a greater formality and order, a different sort of calmness than the sky above.  This is what brought the title to mind.

I see the orderliness of the fields and the the chaos of the sky as one might view the two side of the brain.  The sky is the creative side; the fields the logical, more rational side.  The sky is intuitive, emotional.  The fields are based in empiricism, fact.  The house denotes  the security of residing in this orderly landscape, of living in a world of fact and logic.

The tree, however, lives in both worlds.  It is rooted in the earth, the soil of logic yet grows toward the free-moving sky.  Unlike the straight and stoic lines of the house, the tree is organic and reactive as it grows, always adjusting to support itself and growing towards that which nurtures.

It is between worlds.

Read Full Post »

The Wind of Change

Posted in Quote, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on March 30, 2010| 2 Comments »

Sometimes in the winds of change we find our true direction.

——–Anonymous

I’ve finished a couple of paintings over the last few days, pieces that I will show here in the next week or so.  This is a 12″ by 36″ canvas and is sort of a revisiting of a theme and a visual motif in the way the sky is painted.  I wanted a sense of motion and flow in the sky.  Controlled, directed chaos.  Like the wind itself.

I love painting the skies in this type of painting.  It’s thousands of paint strokes, layer after layer, built up.  There’s a real meditative quality in this manner of work, where I can lock into the surface and not feel as though there’s a task before me.  Time drops away and all I see is the next stroke to be painted.  It’s a strong and interesting feeling that really connects me with the work.

I sometimes worry that I see more in this work because I’m looking at it with the memory of this feeling achieved while painting.  The outside viewer doesn’t have this memory and can only judge it on their own experience and reaction to what is before them.  When I’m evaluating my paintings, I try to look at the work with a detached eye, putting aside personal memory and influence, but it’s hard to do so completely.  Those memories are strong.  I can only hope that the viewer gets a sense of the feeling from their own eye, that it somehow comes through and reveals itself to them in the brushstrokes and surface of the painting.

Often it does.  Sometimes it doesn’t.

That’s painting…

Read Full Post »

Through the Labyrinth

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , , on March 23, 2010| 6 Comments »

This is a painting that I’ve been working on for the past several days that I’m calling Through the Labyrinth for the time being.  This piece, a 24″ by 24″ canvas, is part of what may be a new series for this year.

I see this series progressing as a group featuring the look of my typical landscape with a patchwork of fields consisting of blocks of saturated color and random geometric patterns.  I really want to maintain  a rhythm in these fields and make them feel natural and easily translatable to the eye.

By that, I mean I want to take something that when looked at from a purely analytical stance may not be totally natural or rational and make it appear to be so within the framework of the painting.  There’s an example of this in this painting, one that I have used in the past.  If you look at the sun, you recognize it as the sun.  But when you stop and think about it, this sun defies logic.  It is darker than the light emanating from it.

This was initially done without forethought and didn’t even occur to me until a couple of other painters pointed it out.  It always translated naturally in my head as the sun, the light source, despite its comparative darkness.

This is the type of visual translation I want to continue with this next possible series. At this point, it’s still only a possibility.  I’ve worked on a couple and have another one, a large piece, taking shape in my mind.  It’s all a matter of maintaining a natural, organic flow through the piece that creates an environment where the viewer is made comfortable and secure, allowing them to accept it as a credible reality.  This sense of trust allows the piece to take on a real sense of place.

We’ll see how this goes.  This piece is a good step forward.

At least, I think so…

Read Full Post »

The Arrival

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on March 19, 2010| 2 Comments »

Maybe it’s the coming of spring and the later daybreaks caused by our recent shift in the clocks that remind me of how the first light of each day holds so much promise and potential.  Maybe that’s why I’m calling this smaller new painting  The Arrival.  It’s a 9″ by 12″ canvas and is a continuation of my Red Roof series.

I’ve always been enticed about the promise of potential in many things and often find myself wondering why we so often fail to take full advantage of the opportunities that sometimes rise before us.  How many of us have failed to follow their desires, choosing security first?  This always comes to mind when I spend some time doing the genealogy of my family.

So often these people, unheard names from distant times and places who become my family with the turn of a page, packed up and headed for a new horizon, leaving behind the security of  home and family.  Some sought freedoms.  Some sought wealth.  Some, just an opportunity. 

I’m not sure how many of them felt they ever captured the potential of their new land’s potential but that may not be the point.  Perhaps it is in just seeing the potential and following it that matters.

And that’s kind of what I see in this small piece.  While others sleep in their secure homes, the seeker is awake and awaiting the potential of the new day.  The new opportunity’s arrival.

Read Full Post »

In Need of a Name

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged on March 16, 2010| 8 Comments »

This is a new painting, a 16″ by 2o” canvas.  It has a darker feeling than a lot of the recent work and has a much more ominous tone.  I think a lot of that comes from the chaotic nature of the sky and the darkness that rises up from between the field rows.

What’s this painting about?  I don’t know actually.  Like most of the work I do, there’s not a lot of predetermination in the way I paint so sometimes my paintings probably reflect my mood or state of mind from the particular time frame in which a piece is painted.  I guess I was a bit more worried than usual when I was painting this.

Or maybe this piece just worried me a little.  The chicken and the egg thing.

I often wonder if a piece reflects how I’m feeling at the moment of painting or has more effect on me after it’s done.  Maybe they’re the same thing and it’s just a matter of recognition.

I don’t really know.  I just paint.

This painting is still untitled.  I’m still trying to gauge what I see and feel in it so a title is still sort of nebulous for me.  If you have any suggestions, I’d like to hear them.  I may have another contest like the one I held last year to name a painting so use this as a warm-up, okay?

Read Full Post »

Reign of Light

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on March 10, 2010| 4 Comments »

Reign of Light

This is a new painting that I’m calling Reign of Light for the time being.  It’s a 30″ square canvas, a size that is large enough to give the piece real impact in a space.  I’m finding that it has a very commanding presence in the studio, one that immediately pulls the eye to it and holds it.

For me, there’s an ethereal quality in the sky, as though all the many strokes of color represent the deconstruction of time as we know it.  Time breaking apart into fragments of color and light of which we can see only a portion from our earthbound positions.  On one hand, I see the tree in this piece as the seeker, the dreamer.  The climber who is driven by a longing to find a new and higher position from which to see and better understand the world.

But another part of me thinks that maybe that’s too romantic a view for this piece because it seems also like a statement of power, as though the tree is holding court and the multitude of lights that gather above are at it beck and call.

An interesting pull between two separate viewpoints, one of strength and command and the other of wonderment.  Perhaps there is room for both viewpoints here in this painting.  Maybe it comes down to one seeking power from understanding the patterns and processes of the universe and passing that power on to others so that all can benefit.

But then again, maybe it’s just a painting of a tree out in some fields.  Nothing more.

Such is art.

Read Full Post »

As Clouds Roll By

Posted in Biographical, Early Paintings, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on March 2, 2010| 1 Comment »

This  is a new painting that I’ve just finished, tentatively called As Clouds Roll By.  It’s a 14″ by 18″ image painted on ragboard.  It’s a composition that I have visited on a number of occasions, this time at the request of a collector in Pennsylvania, and one that I always get great pleasure from painting.

Even though this is a very simple composition with few elements, the great satisfaction I feel after finishing a piece such as this is something I can’t fully explain.  Perhaps it’s the recognition of the things in this piece that fully jibe with what I want from my own paintings.  The simplicity of design. The quietude of vast open space.  The depth into the picture, even though it is a very simple composition.  The inviting warmth of the house and tree.  The languorous fashion in which the clouds roll by, in a way representing the slow and inevitable march of time.

It clicks a lot of my own buttons.

The clouds in this piece always take me back to the first time I painted clouds in that looked like these.  I was not yet a full-time painter and had obtained a large commisiion that would prove to be very important to me.  I was on a short deadline and was still painting in the dining area of our home at the time with large sheets of paper spread over folding tables.  I was working on a large triptych and was nearly finished when our late cat, Tinker, decided to explore the tables.  Bounding up, she stepped first in a damp part of my palette and ran across the three sheets, leaving perfect little paw prints in a watery blue tint in her wake.  As the echoes of my bellow faded, my mind raced as I looked at my now very unfinished work.

Start over?  No time.  Try to blend them in to the background?  Not with this particular style of painting.  I sat and looked, concentrating.  Wait a minute.  The prints only ran across the sky portion of all the sheets.  And they ran in lovely diagonal manner.

Quickly, I was at it with paint and within several minutes I had blocked in clouds where once there were paw prints.  It worked.  Tinker’s run across the sky fit the rhythm of the piece and the clouds actually gave a fullness to the composition that it had lacked.  It was actually quite an improvement.

So when I see clouds such as these, I always flash back to my initial panic and the subsequent discovery of good fortune in this happy accident.  Since that day, when what seems to be a disatrous event happens with one of my paintings I step back with a much calmer mind and eye with the knowledge that perhaps this is just a new opportunity to see things a new way.

Read Full Post »

« Newer Posts - Older Posts »