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Posts Tagged ‘West End Gallery’

All Is Given

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 13, 2010| 2 Comments »

Another new painting for my show, New Days, that opens next Thursday, Jully 22, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  this piece is titled All Is Given and is 12″ by 12″ on paper.  This piece, for me, is like comfort food.  The color and the way it comes together as a composition has a very soothing effect and there is a real harmony in the deep greens and blues that shines through here.

Even the fact that there is motion in the central figure of the tree doesn’t detract from this peaceful feeling.  The giving of leaves to the wind by the tree seems natural and there is no remorse over the loss.  It is all just part of existing in nature.  Just being and not reacting.  Accepting what is and what cannot be.

It’s one of those pieces where, when done, I feel a great sense of satisfaction.  As though  I’ve hit my mark, reaching some undefined, hazy goal that is known only by reaching it.  That’s hard to explain.  I don’t have specific endpoints when I’m painting.  There is seldom, if ever, a fully realized image in my mind when I start painting.  It’s more of a shifting amorphous mass of color and  with no specific shape or imagery.  I just hope that when I’m painting I can somehow capture the essence of this idea or whatever it is.  Sometimes it is revealed and other times, something different emerges which is a discovery in itself that is quite unlike what I felt in my mind at the beginning of the painting. 

See?  Hard to explain.

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Bent But Not Bowed

Posted in Painting, Recent Paintings, Technique/History, tagged , on July 10, 2010| 4 Comments »

This is the last painting I finished for my show, New Days, that opens in two weeks at the West End Gallery.  The name of this 24″ by 30″ canvas is Bent But Not Bowed and was started several months ago, sitting in various stages just on the periphery of my vision. 

 It started with many layers of gesso that were at first troweled on then finsihed with thick veins that run through the surface in a haphazard, chaotic fashion.  When it was finally prepped it had a definite character before I ever put the first drop of paint to it and as a result, begged for me to put it aside and ponder it.  It had something in it that was there to be revealed with the paint above it, if I could only find it. 

So I set it aside and would consider it as I worked on other paintings, always a bit intimidated by the strength and motion within the surface.  It had to be right or it would fall apart under its own force.

The surface was so rich in texture that over the months I determined that the imagery should be simple and close to the surface, not deep into the picture plane, which is counter to what I normally seek in my work.  The imagery should truly react to such a strong and emotive surface. 

It also needed strong color to accentuate the surface, to bring it even more forward.  More prominent, not understated.  The trick was bringing these elements together in a way that didn’t look too considered, too thought out.  Make each element- the texture, the color and the imagery- play off of one another, bringing the strengths to the forefront in an organic fashion that gives the painting a feeling of it bursting off the canvas on its own. 

This piece certainly has a dynamism is the studio.  It demands the eye.

I feel as though I haven’t squandered the potential that the canvas first held when I first looked on it after the gesso was applied.  It is a piece that has real life, real feel.  A voice that has words of its own, well beyond mine.

In short, it is what I hoped it could be…

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Emerge the Light

Posted in Biographical, Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 8, 2010| 5 Comments »

Very early morning. 

 Gray light just breaking through the trees, birds tweeting and twirping awake in the branches and a haze in the air as the slightly dewy ground gives up the precious moisture to the warm air.

I’m tired, having woke much too early but I’m in the studio now and I’m readying to go to work finishing up a handful of work for my show.  I’m at the end of a creative cycle and I’m usually a bit fatigued and, as a result, more susceptible to worries and concerns about what direction I will next take my work.  The work I’m finishing now is basically done, all creative decisions completed,  so the die is basically cast for this work.  My mind has moved to what comes next and how I will get there. 

I feel now the need to push myself in some way, break from the safety zone of what I know so far as technique and style are concerned and trust my instincts in maneuvering in a new territory.  Maybe it’s a new material or a material used in a different way.  Maybe it’s a new look on the surface– I have a deep seated  desire to let strokes break free from restraint and show their ragged edges and energy.  Slashes. 

Maybe it’s a new subject, a new icon on which to focus my attention, or simply dropping representation and letting the abstract elements take over.

I don’t know.  At the end of one of these cycles, it’s not a matter of how it changes. It only matters that it changes.

I feel fortunate to have my work to express the end and beginning of these cycles of energy that culminate with the need to change, to emerge somehow differently.  Dealing with them in real life, without the use of painted icons to serve as the avatar for the expression my own life’s twists and turns, has not always been smooth sailing.  But transferring the need to transform, in some way, from one’s actual life to a substituted surface of paint has been a blessing for me, if not always an easy one.

With paint, I usually find my way through the shadows and tangle of thought and emerge in light. 

Changed. New.

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The painting at the top is titled Emerge the Light  and is part of my upcoming show, New Days, at the West End Gallery in Corning.  It is a work on paper, a 4″ by 30″ image that is matted and framed out to 10″ by 36″.

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New Days

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on July 6, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a new painting, New Days, that is the featured title  piece on the invitation for my upcoming show at the West End Gallery in Corning.  The show starts with an opening  reception on Thursday, July 22 and runs through the end of August.

This painting, a 30″ by 30′ canvas, and it and its title  represent what I think is the basis for this whole show.  I’m choosing an upbeat tone for this show this piece evokes a feeling of  an optimistic look  forward.   There is a strength and vitality in the red tree and the light in the sky, formed by thousands of brushstrokes, brings a sense of brightness coming.  Without going into hyper-symbolism here, it just portends better things for the new days ahead.

I know I’ve mentioned this before.  I tend to view most new days as being filled with new opportunities.  New chances to seek and discover, to find something new even if it is the most insignificant of finds.  A chance to recognize that opportunity that might change one’s life, even in a small way.  Even now, when this optimism might be tempered by the news of the day, every morning is usually filled with a positivism for what the day might bring.

Maybe that Pollyanna-ish.  I don’t care.  We get to choose how we view the world and that is my choice.  Some days, most days, don’t live up to what I desire for them but I know that the next day, the new day, is waiting with the next dawn, filled with possibility. 

I only have to recognize the possibility…

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Visionary

Posted in Recent Paintings, tagged , on June 28, 2010| 2 Comments »

This is a painting finished for my next exhibition which opens July 22 at the West End Gallery in Corning, NY.  This show, which I am calling New Days, is my tenth annual solo show there, something I never envisioned when I began showing there in the early part of 1995.  At that point, I was amazed that anyone would even want to look at my work,  let alone buy it.  I was simply happy to hang my simple paintings on a wall and have somebody see them, which is still remains a thrill today.

This painting, a 24″ by 30″ canvas, is titled Visionary.  I’ve lived with this piece for a while and there’s a lovely depth into the painting and a golden hue around it that keeps my eye coming back to it.  An almost mystical pull.  It has sat untitled for all this time but this morning, the word visionary came to mind. 

Maybe it’s the distance between the houses in the foreground and the single tree in the distance but I am reminded of the vision quests of many indigenous people in many lands, a rite of passage where a young person of the tribe is sent alone into the wilderness, with the idea that the isolation and the deprivations (fasting is often part of the ritual) will attune them to their true self and their place in the natural world.  This quest is similar to those taken by the tribesmen who have been called forth as shamans although their journey is often enhanced by hallucinogens.

Either way, the idea is to shed all the trappings of their safe life and tap into a mystic energy in nature, confer with the spirits.  Unite with the eternal.  To see the remarkable behind the mundane.

Much like the visionary who, in all cultures, steps away from the safety of what is normal and stands alone.  Their viewpoints may seem far away and improbable, easily brushed aside.  But sometimes, their visions become evident to the normal world and we are grateful for their ability to see beyond what is now to what can be.  Grateful for their self belief and fortitude in stating their visions even though they may realize the risk of derision.

Maybe in this piece, the visionary, as represented by that far tree, is able to see the true nature of light and color as it breaks into pieces in the sky above.  To us, the inhabitants of the houses, it seems but a mere sky.  To the tree, the visionary, it seems to be comprised of unseen forces, the defining elements that make up all things.  He sees deeper, far beyond our shorter sight.  And he seeks to make it known to us.

Well, maybe that’s what I mean by this piece.  Somedays, it’s all a mystery to me…

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The Start of Something

Posted in Technique/History, tagged , , on April 29, 2010| Leave a Comment »

There’s new exhibit that opens at the West End Gallery in Corning next week.  It’s titled The Process- Start to Finish and features the gallery’s roster of artists showing sketches and studies for finished pieces of work.  The idea is to give the viewer a better understanding of how a piece of art evolves through the process. 

Now, I never really do studies and very little sketching for my paintings so this didn’t really seem like a show fitted to my process.  But I remembered that a couple of years ago, at a point when I was floundering a bit and somewhat lost direction, I did a series of sketches (actually, I call them doodles) that eventually evolved into my Archaeology series.

Archaeology: New Day

Done on 12″ by 24″ sheets of watercolor paper with a finepoint Sharpie marker, which I liked to use because it forced bold lines and better simulated the way I used a brush as a drawing device when I painted.   They were basically exercises where I would start at any given point on the sheet with a mark and simply fill the space with shapes and lines.  Kind of  a stream of consciousness thing.  There was no intent .  I was just trying to find something that would fire my then faltering imagination. 

I did this for about a week, filling a number of these sheets until I began to realize that this sketching  process could lend itself well to a different type of painting for me.  One that combined my typical landscapes and iconography with areas of this intuitive doodling.  Thus came the Archaeology series.

So I guess I do have a sketch of sorts for this show.  The piece shown here, Archaeology: New Day, was one of the first in the series.  You can see this by way the underground elements are formed in the same marker-like manner as the sketches as opposed to later pieces in the series where each element is painted as though it is almost floating in an underground basin.  This piece, which remains a personal favorite,  will be at the West End for the show. 

This exhibit opens May 7.

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Early Influence

Posted in Influences, Painting, Technique/History, tagged , , , , on March 15, 2010| 3 Comments »

I’ve been exhibiting at the West End Gallery for over 15 years now and have benefitted in many ways. It was the first place I showed and sold my first piece of work. It was the first place my work was showcased. It was the place that first gave me hope of doing what I love as a career and has served as a jumping off point to other galleries.  So many other things as well. But perhaps the greatest benefit may have been what I have gained from observing the work of the other artists there over the years.

I’ve talked here and in my own blog of how artists from the Corning area such as Mark Reep, Marty Poole and Dave Higgins,  have shaped how I work and how I see my own work. Another such artist is Treacy Ziegler who has shown her collagraphs and, more recently, her paintings at the West End for many years now.

From the moment I saw Treacy’s work many years ago, I was intrigued. I instantly recognized that she was doing with her work what I wanted and didn’t have in my work at the time. Her prints had great areas of dark and light contrast and even in the lightest sections, a sense of darkness was always present which gave every piece real weight. Her bold colors and striking contrasts gave even the simplest compositions a deeper feeling.

They were also immediately identifiable as Treacy’s work. You could see a piece from across the street and you knew whose work it was. She has a very idiosyncratic visual vocabulary and her shapes and forms react beautifully with one another in the techniques she uses in producing her work.

At the time, my own work was still very transparent and very much watercolor based. With Treacy’s work in mind I started adding layers of darkness in my own way. Simplifying form. Enhancing contrast and color. All the time searching for my own vocabulary, my own look.

I’ve always maintained that artists are often more like synthesizers than creators. They absorb multiple influences and take what they see in these influences, merging them together to create something that is completely different than the original. Sometimes not even reminiscent of the influencing work.  For me, the West End has always been a great source for ideas and concepts to absorb. It may be in a certain brushstroke or the way a painting’s composition comes together or just in being exposed to a certain artist’s body of work for a long period of time. Whatever the case, I always find something in the work there that sparks new ideas within me.

And that has been a great benefit…

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Rockin’ Billy

Posted in Early Paintings, Influences, Neat Stuff, tagged , , on February 6, 2010| 1 Comment »

I went to the Little Gems opening last night at the West End Gallery.  It was a really great crowd and I was able to see a lot of people I don’t get to see but a time or two a year.  A lot of good conversation.

One friend, guitarist Bill Groome, reminded me of a piece that I had given him back in 1999.  It was a little piece I had done years before that, before I ever thought of showing or selling my work.  It was done with crayons and was of a guitar player dancing to his own playing.  I called it Rockin’ Billy after rockabilly guitarist Billy Lee Riley, who distinctive, edge-of-wild studio playing rocked most of the early rockabilly recordings at Sun Records, including his own hits Red Hot ( …my gal is red hot, your gal ain’t doodley-squat…) and Flying Saucers Rock and Roll.   There was just something about the player in this little piece that felt liked he was moved by the spirit of that early music.

I didn’t have any images of the piece but when I got into the studio this morning, I found that Bill had emailed me a scan of Rockin’ Billy.   Thanks, Bill.  Even though it’s rough edged and maybe not a virtuoso piece in itself, I still really like this little guy a lot.  I can still hear Billy Lee’s guitar echoing in my memory…

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Some Little Favorites

Posted in Favorite Things, Neat Stuff, tagged , , , , on January 31, 2010| 1 Comment »

I’ve written recently about the upcoming Little Gems show at the West End Gallery in Corning, a show that has a lot of meaning for me as far as being the jumping off point for my career.  I also really enjoy this show,  just to see other artists’ work.  It’s always interesting to see how artists who more often work in larger formats  handle the challenge of working on a smaller scale.

Here’s a great example from Marty Poole.  It’s a beautiful little 6″ by 8″ painting, a wonderful  example of his great ability with color and light.  The face of this child just glows on the panel. Marty is well known nationally for his large landscapes with broad, evocative skies as well as for his figurative work.  His handling of paint is remarkable in any genre.  He very seldom works so small so this show presents a great opportunity for collectors to pick up more affordable pieces from an artist whose work is widely sought.

Another aspect of Little Gems is allowing artists who normally work in a smaller format to show their work on equal footing, as far as size, with artists who works’ normal sizes would dominate the gallery walls.  It allows their normal work to really shine.  Here’s a great example called Last Bell from Mark Reep, whose meticulous black and white small works are always filled with ponderous atmosphere that belies their size.  Just beautiful work.

Then there are artists who take this opportunity for small works to show a different side of their talent.  Such is the case with Wilson Ong who is perhaps best known for his sublime portraiture.  His small pieces are whimsical tiny (in the 2″ by 3″ range)  paintings of animals in unlikely situations. Here are two of my favorites:

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As I said, this is always  a great show to see really talented artists working on a small scales.  Stop in and see these gems.

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Finding Voice

Posted in Influences, Opinion, Recent Paintings, tagged , , on January 27, 2010| 4 Comments »

I wrote yesterday about how music and other stimuli influence my work.  Since then I’ve been thinking about that and a comment made by writer David Terrenoire about knowing other fiction writers who refuse to read other writers for fear of having the voice of this other writer creep into their own.

I believe the creativity of any artist, writer, or musician comes from their own unique perception of the world around them, how they see and take in everything to which they’re exposed and reflect it back to the world.  I don’t think it’s so much that they create new worlds but how they synthesize what they encounter in this world into their own personal version of it.  This synthesis of influences is what gives an artist their unique voice.

I was recently talking to a young painter, still in a college program, whose work showed real promise but it was obvious he was still in search of a voice.  Every painting carried the earmarks of the painter he was influenced by during its making.  While all were well done, there was nothing yet visible that stood out as being uniquely his in any of the paintings.  It was obvious he was still gathering influences, seeing what was out there and trying to copy it first.  I asked him how he liked to paint, how he saw his work in his mind and he said he wasn’t sure yet.

He hadn’t started synthesizing yet.  While obviously talented, his voice was not present yet.

But at some point, for any creative person,  there has to be the transition from simply taking in information and reflecting it just as it entered to a thought process that allows new data, new influences, to be taken in and transformed internally into something uniquely their own.  Their own voice becomes unmistakable.

When that happens, I can’t say.  It’s probably different for every person and maybe it never happens for many.  Maybe there’s an aspect to this I’m overlooking because I am just thinking out loud here.

As is often the case, I don’t really know…

The piece at the top is a tiny new painting,  the image being 1 1/2″ by 3 1/2 ” in size and matted in a 6″ by 8″ frame, called Hold Your Banner High.  It is available at the West End Gallery as part of their Little Gems exhibit.

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