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Only Now

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on May 4, 2026| 6 Comments »

Only Now (2012) – Coming to Principle Gallery

This day will never come again and anyone who fails to eat and drink and taste and smell it will never have it offered to him again in all eternity. The sun will never shine as it does today…But you must play your part and sing a song, one of your best.

—Herman Hesse, Klingsor’s Last Summer (1920)

Only Now, shown above, is a 24″ by 30″ painting from 2012. It is scheduled for inclusion in my June solo show at the Principle Gallery. It has long been a favorite of mine.

I don’t know that I can put a finger on any specific reason for that, but it remains one of those pieces that speaks directly to me. Maybe it is its combination of airiness and earthiness or perhaps it is its clarity of both expression and message for me.

I guess the reason doesn’t matter so much as the fact that it communicates and connects with me on an emotional level. That is the final arbiter for me in all things.

A coincidence occurred while I was looking for a short quote or passage to accompany this painting. I came across the passage above from a lesser-known Hermann Hesse novella that I felt was custom made for this painting. The coincidence came in that I had just purchased the book last week and it still sits unopened and unread on the counter by the backdoor to the studio.

Mere coincidence? Most likely. But it made me wonder about the convergences of things and whether they have meaning in our lives, themes that seem at home in Hesse’s writings. And in my paintings.

By the way, Klingsor’s Last Summer is about a middle-aged painter in the last summer of his life. There is no coincidence here. This will not be my last summer, not by a long shot. Too many paintings still unpainted. Nor am I a middle-aged hedonistic, hard drinking womanizer in Italy like Hesse’s title character.

That description makes my life sound pretty damn boring. But I guess how we experience life is not so important as simply experiencing each day with the understanding that is a once-in-a-lifetime event.

Life is like art– to each his own.

And sometimes the inverse holds true– art is life.

Here’s a song to that might seem at first blush to be an odd choice to go along with this painting. But if you’ve ever really listened closely to the lyrics, you will understand the connection.

Day after day, alone on a hill
The man with the foolish grin is keeping perfectly still
But nobody wants to know him, they can see that he’s just a fool
And he never gives an answer

But the fool on the hill sees the sun going down
And the eyes in his head see the world spinning around

The song is, of course, the Beatles classic The Fool on the Hill from their 1967 album, Magical Mystery Tour. Though the Beatles’ original cannot be surpassed, I am sharing this version from Sergio Mendes & Brasil ’66 for the simple reason that I have always loved its sound and vibe.

And as you know, I am all about the vibe. Says the fool on his hill…

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The Fatigue

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , on April 29, 2026| 8 Comments »

Vincent Van Gogh- The Red Vineyard 1888

I am unable to describe exactly what is the matter with me; now and then there are horrible fits of anxiety, apparently without cause, or otherwise a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in the head.

–Vincent van Gogh, in a letter to his sister, Wilhelmina, April 30, 1889

I am right there with you, Vinnie, my friend.

Didn’t feel like sharing a post this morning, mainly because of the same sort of feeling that van Gogh described to his sister in the passage above. Been swamped with a feeling of emptiness and fatigue in both my head and body in the past week or so that has been debilitating.

The anxiety was already there. It is standard equipment for my model and, like that of Vincent, often comes on without rhyme or reason. It’s like an irritating friend you can’t ditch and just when you think you have shaken free from them, there they are waiting for you when you pull in the driveway.

Of course, Vincent didn’t know the cause of his torments at the time he wrote this letter. It was just months after he had cut off his ear so he was deep into his mental problems then.

Mine on the other hand, were predictable and knowable. Though I have had problems with bouts of depression in the past, my current situation is the result of my cancer treatment. The fatigue is a natural by-product of the anemia that comes as a side effect of the combination of the hormone therapy and radiation with which I am being treated. Treat doesn’t seem like the right word here but we won’t dwell on that.

Today marks a month since the end of my radiation and the fatigue would normally be on the downswing. Since my slight overexertion two weeks ago which set off what I describe as a sort of systemic inflammation, the fatigue has seemed to deepen rather than lessen. I am okay just after waking up but it increases geometrically through the day and by the afternoon, I am wiped out. The dark rings around my eyes and my slow shuffling walk are testament to that.

The empty headedness is more of a brain fog, or perhaps I should describe it as a lag or slowing down of function. Can’t really say and don’t know what causes this, if it is the from the anemia or just from being bone-tired all the time. Whatever the reason, it affects the focus and thought process needed to properly paint or write effectively.

Painting for me is more than a mechanical process. It is not simply a matter of sitting down and painting, which is sometimes the answer when there is a creative block. This doesn’t feel like a normal blockage. My mind doesn’t seem to be reacting in the same way as I expect. As I said, there seems to be a lag in my thinking and a feeling of general emptiness.

When I call on the mental part to concentrate, to solve the problems painting presents, it doesn’t always respond right now. However, there are short periods where it seems to be close to normal. The work is good then and feels right and full.

It’s just those empty periods in between. They bring on a glum tone in me, one that has me questioning the validity of everything. It makes me yearn for the days of radiation and the steroid, dexamethasone, that brought on a what I describe as a giddy elation. It felt like I was then on the manic side of manic-depression and am now experiencing the depression side.

While I do not like this in any way, I am not worried, at least in the existential way that Vincent’s depression brought on. I know that feeling all too well and this is not that.

This has a reason for being here with me now and will most likely soon pass. Knowing that makes all the difference.

Fortunately, it also gives me glimpses of that return to some sort of normality on most days, usually in the early morning when my energy level is as high as it will likely be for the day. That’s why I try to get to work early, including writing this blog.

On days like today, when I start off not wanting to write anything, it is important for me to stay at it. I think I’ve posted something for around 160 straight days and I find that I need to do this right now. It may not produce anything that interests anyone, including myself, but the sheer act of doing it is vital in staving off a descent into real depression. That’s an altogether different animal.

It lets me know that as energy returns, my painting time and the requisite focus will also increase.

And that’s all I really need to know.

I am including the post below from 2019 concerning the Van Gogh painting at the top, The Red Vineyard. I thought his words to his brother Theo had pertinence to today’s post. Plus, as I say, the painting is a peach.

[From 2019]

“I can very well do without God both in my life and in my painting, but I cannot, suffering as I am, do without something which is greater than I, which is my life, the power to create.”

― Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, Theo, September 1888

Amen.

Love the passion in the words above from Van Gogh but really just wanted to share the painting at the top of the page. It’s The Red Vineyard from 1888. It is considered to be the only painting ever sold by Van Gogh in his lifetime.

It was bought by the Belgian Impressionist artist Anna Boch in 1890, the year of Van Gogh’s death. It was bought for what would be abut $2000 in today’s dollars. I include that because when Boch let it go to auction in 1909, its value had shot up to what would be about $150,000 today. Van Gogh’s sister-in-law, the widow of his brother Theo, wanted to get it back but the price went well past her means.

It was purchased by a Russian collector who gave up ownership of it when all private property was nationalized by the Bolsheviks after the Communist Revolution. Today, it hangs in the Pushkin Museum in Moscow.

More than likely I will never see this painting in person but it remains a peach.

I don’t expect that many will but if you got this far today, thanks for sticking to it for this long. It is much appreciated.

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A Look Back: Dissolve

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 28, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Dissolve– 2011

Anyone in whom the troublemaking self has died,
sun and cloud obey.
If you wish to shine like day,
burn up the night of self-existence.
Dissolve in the Being who is everything.

— Rumi, Masnavi, Book I (ca. 1258)

The paintings in the A Look Back series usually drawn are from my earliest work, pre-2000 or thereabout. By that definition, this painting from 2011, Dissolve, is not part of that series. But nothing is carved in stone here and it is more than a few years old. That’s good enough for me.

I used this piece several weeks ago in a post about being humble. The painting was not mentioned and only served as a symbol of humility for that post. I thought it deserved more attention since it has long been a favorite of mine and will be included in my solo show, Flow, at the Principle Gallery in June.

Below is what I wrote about this painting soon after it was completed in 2011:

This painting called Dissolve is another in the series I’ve been working in for the past few months. This 24″ by 36″ piece is based very much on the same format as Like Sugar In Water, [a large 36″ by 60″ painting from that same time, shown below that served as an anchor for my 2012 show at the Fenimore Museum]. Both paintings grow from the bottom where they begin in structured blocks of color. The path cuts through, rising from the geometry of the fields up to a plain that flattens out. The path continues by the red-roofed house and is not seen again as it enters the broad yellow field that runs to the horizon. The path’s upward movement is continued in the spreading bare limbs of the distant tree which merges into the broken mosaic of the sky.

GC Myers- Like Sugar In Water

GC Myers- Like Sugar In Water 2011

It’s a simple concept and composition, dependent on the complexity of the color and the placement of the elements in order to transmit feeling and emotion. These simpler compositions, when things click and I feel they work well, are often very potent purveyors of feeling and are among my personal favorites. The stripped-down nature of the scene takes away all distractions and centers the essence of the work in the willing viewer’s eyes, making it very accessible to those who connect with it.

And that is much of what I hope for my work- to create work that stirs strong emotion within a seemingly simple context.

Maybe there’s more to it than this. I can’t be sure if my thoughts and interpretations are any more valid than those of a first-time viewer. That’s the great thing about art– there are no absolutes.

That’s also the thing about art that scares a lot of people. Many people fear the gray areas of this world, of which there are many, desiring an at least an appearance of absolute belief and knowledge in all aspects of their lives. However, art most often lives in the ambiguity and uncertainty of this world.

And that can be unsettling to some. 

 Dissolve seems absolute and certain at first glance but is all about the gray areas of our world and our belief.  At least as I see it…

I realize that this earlier description didn’t really say much about what it meant for me. Here’s how I described this painting to the writer for American Art Collector, which will be featuring it in an upcoming preview for my show:

The title for this painting, Dissolve, comes from the feeling I sometimes have that we humans exist in a state of being in that gray area between the physical solidity of this earth and the ethereal nature of the sky. We are made up of both– the physical and the ethereal– equally. At some point that balance shifts. The body remains but the ethereal part of us begins to disperse and dissolve into the sky. Like sugar in water.

I don’t know if the two descriptions combined do this piece justice. Funny how what seems to be a simple painting can sometimes be beyond the grasp of words yet speak powerfully to some emotion within us.

Maybe that is its strength, the quality in it that draws me to it.

I don’t know. I only know that it always leaves me with the desire to stand out in an open field and feel myself being absorbed into the ether, my atoms mingling once more with those of the universe.

Here is a song in a similar vein. This is a new cover of the Mazzy Star hit from 1993, Fade Into You, from Gregory Alan Isakov, who I have featured here in the past, and Sylvan Esso, which is an electropop duo from Durham, North Carolina , according to Wikipedia. Not knowing exactly what electropop is, they are new to me, but I like their work with Isakov on this song. It has a good feel.

Now be gone. You’re blocking my absorption…

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Failure? No, thank you…

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 25, 2026| 2 Comments »

If at first you don’t succeed, try, try again. Then quit. There’s no point in being a damn fool about it.

-W.C. Fields

As I’ve been going through older work here in the studio lately, I began to think about the time and effort I spent in creating these paintings. The work probably represents thousands of hours spent painting, probably a couple of years of my labor, maybe more. I am not willing to do the precise calculations this morning.

Taking them all in, the question comes to mind: Do these pieces represent some form of failure?

The pessimistic part of me wants to say yes but examining each of them reveals a different answer. I would never consider most of the work failures in any way. They are alive and vibrant with speak their own voice. They simply haven’t found a way to escape from me. And for those paintings with evident flaws, their failure is a temporary condition that can be remedied with a bit more care and consideration on my part. A heightening of color here and there, a small addition that better balances the composition, or a change of frame or varnish for those that have been poorly presented.

Relatively minor things Few, if any, are irreparably flawed. Most just need a bit more time and attention.

And for those that can’t be brought alive, I salute them for their sacrifice. Their failure and the lessons learned from them may have provided what was needed for the success of another piece at some later date.

This all brings to mind the post below on failure that first ran back in 2011 and was shared again in 2021.

[From 2011}

In response to yesterday’s post concerning a very large blank canvas that is waiting patiently for me, I received several very interesting questions from my friend, Tom Seltz, concerning the role that failure and the fear of failure play in my work. He posed a number of great questions, some pragmatic and some esoteric, that I’ll try to address.

On the pragmatic side, he asked if there is a financial risk when I take on large projects like the 4 1/2′ by 7′ canvas of which I wrote. Shown here, this went on to become what I consider a signature piece, The Internal Landscape. Actually, it’s not something I think about much because every piece, even the smallest, has a certain cost in producing it that, after these many years, I don’t stop to consider. But a project such as this is costlier as a larger canvas is more expensive right from the beginning simply due to the sheer size of it. The canvas is heavier and more expensive and more of it is used. I use a lot more gesso and paint. The framing is much more expensive and the logistics of shipping and transporting become more involved and costly. It’s larger size and corresponding price means the audience of potential buyers is much more limited which means it might take more time to find, if it ever does. Which means more time trucking it around to galleries or storing it.

And while these cost of materials and handling represent the financial risk, the largest cost outlay comes in the time spent on such a project. It takes longer to prepare such a large canvas, longer to paint and, if it works out, longer to finish and frame. This is time not spent on other projects. Time spent is by far the biggest risk in facing such a project and that is something I have to take into consideration before embarking on large projects.

He also asked whether I can reuse the materials if I don’t like what I’ve painted. Sure, for the most part.  Especially canvasses. Actually, the piece shown here on the right was once such a piece. There’s a failure lingering still beneath its present surface.

I had a concept in my head that floated around for months and I finally started putting it down on this 30″ square canvas. I spent probably a day and a half worth of time and got quite far into it before I realized that it was a flawed concept, that I was down a path that was way off the route I had envisioned. It was dull, shapeless, and lifeless, even at an early stage.

It was crap and I knew that there was no hope for it. I immediately painted it over, mainly to keep me from wasting even more time by trying to resuscitate it, something I often attempt. The piece shown here emerged, happily for me.

Tom also asked if I ever “crashed and burned” on a piece or if the worst sort of failure was that a piece was simply mediocre. Well, I guess the last few paragraphs say a bit about the “crashed and burned” aspect, although that is a rarer event than one might suspect. After decades of painting, a piece doesn’t get too far along in the process before I recognize its apparent flaws in design or execution and begin the process of correcting them.

Sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. The beauty of painting is that it’s results are always subjective. There is almost never total failure.

It’s not like skydiving and when your parachute doesn’t open you die. At least, that hasn’t been my experience thus far.

I’ve fallen on my face many times but I’m still here.

Mediocrity is a different story. That is the one thing I probably fear most for my work and would consider a piece a failure if I judged it to be mediocre. I have any number of examples I could show you in the nooks and crannies of my studio. I’m not sharing those today. Even flawed and mediocre, these pieces have a purpose for me, and many have remaining promise. The purpose is in the lessons learned from painting them. I usually glean some information from each painting, even something tiny but useful for the future. Each is a rehearsal in a way. But most times, the mediocre pieces teach me what I don’t want to repeat in the future. A wrong line or form here. A flatness of color there or just simple dullness everywhere.

But, being art, there are few total failures, and many of these somewhat mediocre pieces sit unfinished because there are still stirs of promise in them.  I can’t tell you how many times I’ve come to what I felt was a dead end for a painting, feeling that it was dull and lifeless, and set it aside. Months and months might pass and one day I might pick it up and suddenly see something new in it. A new way to move in it that brings it new life. These paintings often bring the greatest satisfaction when they leave the gallery with a new owner.

Sometimes failure is simply a momentary perception that requires a new perspective.

Sometimes you need to fail in order to succeed later.

Okay, that’s it for now. I’m sure I have more to say about failure, but it will have to wait until a later date. I’ve got work waiting for me that doesn’t know the meaning of the word failure and I don’t want to take the risk that it might learn it.

Tom, thanks again for the great questions.  I’m always eager for good questions so keep it up!

Now here’s I Don’t Mind Failing from the quirky folksinger Malvina Reynolds. It’s from around 1965 and was written after hearing a sermon called The Fine Art of Failing. Lot of great lines in this one:

I don’t mind failing in this world,
I don’t mind failing in this world,
Somebody else’s definition
Isn’t going to measure my soul’s condition,
I don’t mind failing in this world.

Give a listen and if you fail today, don’t worry about it. You’re in good company.

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A Look Back: My Little Town

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on April 24, 2026| 6 Comments »

My Little Town (1995)

In my little town
I grew up believing
God keeps his eye on us all
And he used to lean upon me
As I pledged allegiance to the wall

— Paul Simon, My Little Town

This is a little piece from back in November of 1995. There was a lot going on at that point of that year. I had started showing my work at the West End Gallery by then while still working as a waiter at a pancake house and continuing to build our home, which we hoped to soon occupy. My mom was also in the last week or two of her life, a thousand miles away.

It was a busy and fraught time.

I don’t how much any of that came into play for this little painting at the time. I just don’t remember much about working on it. I do remember not thinking much of it when it was done. It felt more like an exercise in color and form more than anything. For the some time, I wouldn’t give it much consideration when I went through my old work. I didn’t even bother scanning it when I was documenting much of the other small pieces from that time. It just seemed insignificant.

But I did title it, scrawling My Little Town along with the date on the bottom of the piece of watercolor paper on which it was painted. That alone makes me think that it had something in it that clicked with some part of me that I might not have recognized at that time.

It seems as though that was the case. Over the years I increasingly began to stop and look at this small painting when I shuffled through the old stuff. It had a completeness that spoke to me and differentiated it from other old work that seemed to be missing this critical element.

It also made me think about what it was saying to me as well as what was meant by that title. I was pretty sure it didn’t mean anyplace I recognized as my home in this physical world. At that time, I felt somewhat disconnected from calling anyplace home. I felt rootless, having not yet discovered the ties our family had to this place. It felt like there was a hole in my existence, one that had me seeking some place I would know as home. This search for home was a theme in my work for quite a few years.

I now see this painting as being about the hometown that was forming in my imagination. The same place that later spawned the Red Tree and the Red Roofs. If I couldn’t feel an attachment to any place then, I could still create such a place in my mind.

And that is how I see this piece now, as being emblematic of the imagination’s power to satisfy a basic need. It tells me that wherever I am, my hometown is there in my head. As a result, it has gone from having me see it as a mere exercise into a favorite little piece.

Of course, the title was derived from the Simon and Garfunkel song of the same name which I am sharing below. I am also sharing a video from back in 2010 that deals with this same idea of home. It is titled Finding Home and was put together at the request of gallery in Tulsa, Oklahoma that was showing my work at the time. It’s kind of rudimentary compared to what can be done these days and the resolution seems poorer than I remember. I watched it for the first time in many years this morning and was interested in seeing the studio (and myself) then as compared to now. The work shown in it is all well remembered. The wall behind me as I was working at my painting table, the one that contained a few pieces of my work, is now a pair of windows. I was heavier then, as well. Things change.

Okay. Enough. I have to get to work while I still have a bit of energy. I have been fatigue’s bitch these last few days. I bet you weren’t expecting that phrase. Oh, well, what are you gonna do? Now, git…

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Room to Breathe/Ride Lonesome

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on April 23, 2026| 2 Comments »

Room to Breathe (2010)

You got to ride lonesome
You got to try to find the road
You got to cry a river
And follow it all the way home
Alone

— Beck, Ride Lonesome (2026)

The painting at the top, Room to Breathe, has long been a favorite of mine. When it was painted in 2010, it seemed different than the work I was doing at the time, more like a throwback to my earlier work. It had that feel, painted as it was with the transparent inks that marked my early work. It also had that same airy solitariness with the Red Tree out and away from the other trees beneath a wide and deep sky.

But more than these other similarities, it had a simplicity that I was craving at the time. My early work was simple by design, meant to cut away the distraction of detail, allowing the few basic forms to hopefully dance and harmonize with one another. More than that, it allowed space for the viewer’s own feelings.

Room to Breathe felt like it was very much cut from the same cloth.

It is well traveled, having made the rounds of the galleries around the country through the years. Every piece does not immediately find a home and sometimes those pieces that I consider true gems are simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. So, having a painting return to you is not uncommon. In fact, it’s a regular and expected thing for any artist, something taken it in stride.

But with some pieces, there is a sense of hurt attached to them when they return. Every piece I paint has an emotional investment, carrying with it some part of me. But some pieces seem to carry a bit more of me with them. Their return always feels like it is not only the painting that is being rejected. It feels like it is a personal rejection as well.

I know that this is not the case. But that feeling still lingers even after I have rationalized the why’s and how’s of it. I sometimes think it is like seeing something in your child that is not evident to everyone else and how deeply you feel at even the most minor of rejections they experience.

It is a disappointment that comes when others are somehow blind to the qualities that you love in your progeny.

I suppose that is how I feel about this painting. And maybe it also represents my own moments of rejection or exclusion, those times when I found myself not part of the in-crowd or even in the inner core of my smaller group of friends.

Like the Red Tree standing apart from the group of trees.

I have found that standing apart is not a bad thing. There is, as the title plainly states, room to breathe. Clear air and unobstructed views.

Room to think and grow in all directions.

I am still debating whether I will include this painting in my June show at the Principle Gallery. I am not sure I want to subject this child of mine– or myself– to yet another potential rejection.

But I tell myself that one of the lessons of this life is that though you may face disappointment and rejection, you have to keep getting up and going out to meet it head-on.

Who knows– it might be your lucky day.

Here’s a new song from Beck that initially sparked this entry. It’s called Ride Lonesome. Its chorus shown at the top pretty much sums up what I have tried to say here.

Now, get out of here and go back to the other trees. I want to be alone…

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The Outsider

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , on April 1, 2026| 2 Comments »

Out of the Loop 2013

I’m fundamentally, I think, an outsider. I do my best work and feel most braced with my back to the wall. It’s an odd feeling though, writing against the current: difficult entirely to disregard the current. Yet of course I shall.

–Virginia Woolf, 22 November 1938, A Writer’s Diary (1953)

The lines above Virginia Woolf from a 1938 entry in her A Writer’s Diary struck a chord with me. In the entry, Woolf looked back on her career, describing how she had at points received praise and widespread acclaim and at other times fell out of favor with the literati, suffering criticism and personal attacks that marked her as a second-rate talent.

She had certainly known the highs and lows.

She claimed that the attacks did not bother her as much as she might have expected since she had never saw herself as being famous. How can they take away something you never felt you possessed? Actually, she saw their downgrading of her as being a sort of relief, shedding all pretense of her being part of the insider’s club. She could clearly see herself as an outsider now. As she wrote, it put her back to the wall, a place where she felt she did her best work.

Much like the I’ll show them attitude I described here recently.

As I wrote above, this resonated with me. Though I’ve had my fair share of high points and an equally fair share of low points, I have always, like Woolf, viewed myself as an outsider.

I believe this comes from knowing who I am and how I am built. I understand that I don’t have what it takes to be an insider. I don’t play a social game, don’t go to parties and few openings. To be honest, I am uncomfortable at my own events. I don’t schmooze with museum or gallery directors. Don’t seek out people who might specifically help my career. No agent seeking new opportunity nor public relations person trying to spread my name in the media. Outside of this blog and a few little social media entries, I have no mechanism for self-promotion. And even this seems like something more than self-promotion now.

I was never part of an artistic group or school. Well, there was one time, when my work first showed at the Principle Gallery in 1997. I was part of group of five artists from this region, all then showing at the West End Gallery, selected by the Principle Gallery who then labeled us the Finger Lakes School. We did a couple of shows there under that label. But even then, I was the outsider in that group, the only one of the five working outside of traditional representational oil painting.

I also don’t pursue opportunity. Perhaps to a fault.

After my 27-year relationship with Kada Gallery in Erie ended when they closed a couple of years ago and the gallery repping my work in California had changed their business model in a way that greatly lowered my visibility there, I considered looking for new galleries to replace those two. I had a realization then that I had not approached a gallery in nearly 30 years and that every gallery that had represented me approached me first. Approaching galleries now felt so far out of my comfort zone that I soon dropped the idea.

And often, I turn away those opportunities that are offered.  I have often failed to follow-up on commission requests simply because I wanted to do work that pleased me first and then others, not the other way around.

A year or so ago, I was offered a chance to have 13 of my Red Tree paintings grace the covers of a series of Hermann Hesse books published in Mandarin Chinese. The company in China had been following my work for several years and felt that my work was a good match for Hesse’s work. I was flattered but ended up turning down the offer simply because I felt it was too far out of my hands.

Mistake? Maybe. It wouldn’t be the first time. But I find myself being okay with this and those other peccadilloes because I know how I am.

I know I am an outsider, will never be the toast of the art world outside of my little corner of it every once in a while.

The way I see it is that to be in that wider spotlight requires effort and responsibility that goes well beyond the work itself, something I am not comfortable in taking on at this point in my life as an artist.

And I am fine and comfortable with that. To be honest, I never trusted the perception that came with the highs nor the lows. Though the praise is nice to hear sometimes and the rejection always stings, they ultimately are not accurate indicators. The work was generally equal in my eyes at both the high and the low points. Actually, there has been work produced in the low points that went unnoticed that I feel was better than much of the work from the high points.

Time, it turns out, levels out those highs and lows.

So now I just do my work, as Woolf did, with my back against the wall and going forever against the current.

That’s all I can do. That is who and what I am– the outsider.

Here’s a tune from Eddie Vedder that is somewhat, if not wholly, in the same vein. This is Society.

PS: Not that it matters, but this is a remake of the post I accidentally deleted yesterday. I think the original had a bit more gracefulness and flow than this one. Maybe it hit its points more impactfully. But this will have to do for now.  It’s much like trying to recreate a painting where the original just flowed organically from the artist. The copy never has the same ease of being, at least in the eyes of its maker. 

The painting at the top, Out of the Loop, is a piece from 2013 that I am considering for inclusion in my June show at the Principle Gallery. It recently came back to me from California where it had been for over a dozen years. My impression of it had been reduced to the online image of it, such as the one at the top. When I took it from the crate, I was thrilled and surprised at its vibrance and depth, which far exceeded the digital image. Seemed a perfect fit for this post but still deciding if it goes to Alexandria in June. We’ll see…

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A Look Back: Winter Park

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on March 11, 2026| Leave a Comment »

Winter Park — 1994

Silience

n. the kind of unnoticed excellence that carries on around you every day, unremarkably—the hidden talents of friends and coworkers, the fleeting solos of subway buskers, the slapdash eloquence of anonymous users, the unseen portfolios of aspiring artists—which would be renowned as masterpieces if only they’d been appraised by the cartel of popular taste, who assume that brilliance is a rare and precious quality, accidentally overlooking buried jewels that may not be flawless but are still somehow perfect.

–The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, John Koenig

The painting at the top is from the autumn of 1994 making it an early piece for my work. I immediately called it Winter Park when it was completed– if you can call it completed. I wasn’t sure at the time if I was done with it. The white negative space was still up in the air in my mind and I was thinking it might need some color.

But the more I looked at it, the more that negative space took on a positive form for me. Color would have sullied it, made the sky less prominent which was a big factor in choosing to leave it as it is. This was painted not long after I had experienced my Eureka! moment with a painting that I called First View from August of 1994. I have discussed that painting several times here over the years, describing how when I first saw it, I knew that I had found something important to me that I didn’t even know I was seeking.

This painting felt like a continuation of that moment. Especially in its sky. It had the same sort of mixture of muted tones that created a complex color that was hard to describe. It was both beautiful and appealing to my eye but at the same time had the feel of a deep bruise in the sky. And that appealed to me, as well.

It created a great polarity of emotion for me within this seemingly simple piece. The negative space took on the form of snow in my mind and had a joyful feel in the way its clean, cool whiteness played off the muddle of the sky. But it also felt a bit wary and weary for me in the next moment, as though it represented enduring the journey through a long, hard winter that wasn’t yet over.

It’s been a piece that I come back to quite often when I review my past work. It has roughness and rawness that appeals to me. That’s something I still crave in my work but is sometimes hard to find after years of practice and refinement of whatever skills I possess.

In the refinement you sometimes lose a hard emotional edge that can’t be replicated no matter how far one’s abilities have progressed. I don’t know that I can properly explain that.

I think that’s why I am always looking for the next Eureka! moment. I know there’s something still out there but don’t yet know what it is. It will make itself known with unmistakable clarity when it comes.

If it comes.

Who knows? I may have already exceeded my given allotment of Eureka! moments. If so, I am grateful for the few I’ve been fortunate to experience. All were unexpected gifts. All were lifechanging.

What more can you ask?

I thought I would run the post below that was coupled with Winter Park about five years back. It doesn’t have an awful lot to do with the painting itself but speaks to how Eureka! moments and bits of serendipity sometimes lead a fortunate few to destinations they didn’t even know they were seeking. Perhaps at the end of that path in Winter Park…

[From 2021] I came across the word at the top, silience, while browsing through a site I’ve mentioned here a number of times in the past, The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows. It reminded me of the many bits of serendipity that brought me to the life and career I have been so fortunate to have and how lucky I have been in encountering people who didn’t just walk by without noticing my work.

It makes me feel grateful, indeed. It also makes me feel somewhat guilty for my good fortune when I know with absolute certainty that there are equally or more talented people out there whose work and abilities has gone unnoticed. I often see or hear the work of folks who have yet to find an audience and wonder how this could be. I find myself rooting for them, wanting them to continue to do whatever they do so that their work might someday find its way into a situation that will shine a light on it.

It also makes me somewhat guilty for the time that I have wasted, for the bits of hubris I have displayed at times when mistaking the serendipity I have encountered for some sort of entitlement or inevitability.

It’s a needed reminder that any notice my future work receives must be earned anew and that I must take notice of and encourage the talents of others.

Here’s a well-done video for silience:

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Born Into Color

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , , , , on March 10, 2026| 6 Comments »

Born Into Color— At West End Gallery

There is not one little blade of grass, there is no color in this world that is not intended to make men rejoice.

—John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion (1536)

I was born into a world of color. Color is the basis for what I do and how I see and feel things. Color has an emotional power that triggers all kinds of responses in my mind.

Yes, I was born into color.

However, it didn’t always seem that way when I was a child. I was reared and learned much of what I knew from television. Well, from reading, too, but that isn’t part of this post. From life lessons and ethics to the value of goofiness and absurdity. My view of human behavior was greatly shaped, for better or worse, by the shows I saw on the television.

Black and white television.

We didn’t have a color television until 1973 so, the shows that defined my childhood were all seen in black and white. I took it on faith that Mr. Green Jeans on the Captain Kangaroo show really wore green pants. I am still not sure because my memory only remembers him in black and white. The gorgeous, deep colors of Warner Brothers and Disney cartoons did not exist in color for me except in those rare occasions when I saw one at a movie theatre.

The color in those rare sightings made color feel very luxurious then. I think it was the absence of color in my viewing diet at that time that developed my appreciation and desire for color, that made me see it as a rare and special thing. I found that color had the power to attract and hold my attention, to inspire me, to light a creative fuse.

A single color could, in itself and in combination with other colors and forms, provoke emotions of all sorts. It could lift me up or make me somber from one moment to the next. But primarily, it made me aware of our place in the natural world, that we were part of the colorful richness and beauty that is this world.

By extension, we humans, as part of this world, were also made from that same richness and beauty.

Yes, we were all born into color.

This begs for a much longer essay, one that I am not prepared to write this morning. Perhaps some time in the future, I will better address this. Or not. If I promise to do it, I will begin to feel it as a burden and, as a result, most likely will consciously avoid doing it.

That’s my modus operandi.

One of the things that make me who I am? I don’t know if that is being colorful or just a pain in the butt.

It makes me wonder about the origins of the term  a colorful character and why and when they began to use it to describe certain people.

Hey, that should have been the end of this post. I should have asked if this appreciation and desire for color makes me a colorful character. That would have been a great parting line.

Guess I missed that opportunity. Oh, well, next time. Or not. Who knows?

Here’s a favorite song that is definitely on point this morning. It’s She’s a Rainbow from the Rolling Stones in 1967. Geez, hard to believe this song is almost 60 years old. Great song and a great richly colored video. Good stuff all the way around.

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A Look Back: Jason Thieves the Golden Fleece

Posted in Uncategorized, tagged , , , on February 23, 2026| 7 Comments »

Jason Thieves the Golden Fleece (May, 1994)

It is a fact that we tribes of suffering men never plant our feet firmly upon the path of joy, but there is ever some bitter pain to keep company with our delight.

–Apollonius of Rhodes, Argonautica (3rd century BC)

For this week’s A Look Back, we’re going to focus on a small group of experimental pieces. They came at a time when I was trying a lot of new things that gave me insights into how different paints reacted and moved on the painting surface as well as how to apply paint in different ways.

I remember this time as being very exciting for me. My mind was in overdrive and ideas were firing out of it at a dizzying pace. The problem with this was that it was unfocused. Instead of being like a fireworks display lighting up the sky, it was more like a big bag of fireworks being shoved into a steel 55-gallon drum then being set ablaze. Loud, but no direction or flow.

But it was what it was and being so, I took what I could from the explosions and bursts that rattled around and emerged from the steel drum that was my mind.

At one point, I was experimenting with moving paint on the surface with a simple drinking straw. Placing a drop in one spot, I would direct it by blowing through the straw. I loved the tendrils of paint it created, long and thinning as they progressed. If I changed the direction of my blowing, it created a lovely organic bend that mimicked the branch of a tree. I also applied thin watercolor washes as I normally would as well as playing with this same thinned watercolor in an atomizer to create an interesting background texture.

It was all abstract in nature. There was no intention, nothing that I was trying to represent. These pieces acted more like Rorschach tests, where one gives their first impression of random ink blots. I have vague memories of a board game we had from the 1960’s that incorporated these inkblots. I don’t remember us actually playing the game, just looking at the blots and trying to figure out what we were seeing in them.

As for these pieces, I wouldn’t even consider what they might be until they were what I felt was complete. And determining this finish point was completely intuitive. If all the elements and colors felt whole and unified, then I thought it was done.

I only did a handful of these pieces at the time. Though I enjoyed painting them and felt some excitement in the finished pieces, I didn’t feel I could mentally commit to the process in any meaningful way over the long term.

It didn’t feel like a found voice. I was still searching for that and while I didn’t know what it would be, I knew that I would recognize immediately when I came across it. And I was right, but that’s another story.

This particular piece intrigued me from the minute I felt it was done. I immediately saw a character with something tucked under their arm running towards some destination represented by the blue ball and the bit of a swirl around it. That looked like some form of destiny to me.

Though the item under its arm appeared mainly red there was bit of gold that I instantly saw as the golden fleeced ram stolen by Jason in order to fulfill his quest in the Greek myths. I don’t know why exactly why that came to mind. Do we ever truly know why we think many things? If we did know why, couldn’t we do a better job at thinking?

Now, you might see it as something completely different, though I have probably given you too much mental direction at this point, which I probably should not have done. But give me a break– I’m an artist, not a psychoanalyst.

I always particularly enjoy coming across this small experimental group. I still get a kick out of them that makes me wonder how things would have went if I had felt more committed to this style at the time, if I would have been able to develop this voice in a way that would connect with others. Would it have led to the same sort of life that I was later fortunate to find? Maybe it would have led to an even better one?

I kind of doubt it. If I had went that way, I’d probably right now be the guy collecting shopping carts in the Walmart parking lot. That’s not a knock on that job. There have been many points along the way when I have envied that guy. Hell, I have been that guy before.

And if not for inkblots, fireworks in a steel drum, and falling ladders, I might still be that guy.

Funny how that works.

 

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