I did promise flowers would be my next one, and dandelions used to be a valuable one. It’s edible and herbal properties well known among natural healers. Now it’s a money maker for Glyphospate in order to spread invasive species of grass – but I digress. The doodle I present you is not about the one chance we get at love in this life. It’s a PSA for the consequences of choosing the wrong person and how the consequences reverberate throughout ones psyche and can be like an anchor chain pulling one into the deep. So, choose wisely kiddies. BUT, not being a negative Nelly, after every storm, after every calamity or disaster, people heal, things grow. It’s the cycle of things. Once again, this isn’t about my marriage, I chose poorly, my bad – it’s more about the after-math of life-changing situations – that there is life after, maybe not for that one true love – but for the joy of waking up each morning. also, I love how shadows interact with their surroundings, and particularly with junk. I chose to go with a close-in on the F-stop, but believe me, the scene in the blur is awesome. Fun fact, I did use my wedding photo in this, but it was more relevant than searching the Internet for one. Okay, Nuff said.
This is a painting about wasting time with the wrong person over 18 years and realizing at the end of it all that there’s no chance to find that one true love – she’s a ghost, gone in the corridors of time – the chance has passed, everyone’s jaded, you’ve more memories buried than prospects blooming, there will be no one to electrify every fiber of your being, and that the books and tales of chivalric love were a total lie. Of course you’ll go on, because you still have hope, and you can’t get the morbid irony in death that you can in life, but f**k.
I’m truly sorry I’ve not done anything in the last couple of days. I’m working through proposals at work (to pay for my art!) and skin cancer to boot, but last night at 3ish, I made this video of recent art (going back to October (ish). I’ll get creative again soon! I kind of want to do a full length video of all the artwork I’ve done, but it would be significantly longer than 2 minutes – more along the lines of an hour. Maybe over the holiday weekend.
Remember when you were a kid, and you pretended you were on a rocket ship or airplane as you tried to swing higher and higher? That’s the feeling I’m going for with this. Whether or not I’ve achieved it is up to you, as that is the purpose of art. It’s a fantasy piece, to end a not so great year and bring in a new one full of hope, happiness, and dreams. I could explain the piece but I’m hoping you get it without that bit of tediousness. Happy New Year.
This is a doodle playing on the question “what if our universe were just an atom in a bigger thing, like a sewage pipe?” – it would explain a lot 🙂 I took some previously used elements and combined them in a different way, so, yeah. The gardener, an Android whose head provides life for the fruits of her garden, tends the various seeds of life in her garden. Space within space I guess is the theme.
No doubt this may be labeled NSFW, until I tell the censors that it’s art. This is about #depression – that black hound which haunts so many, including myself, and the tools one uses to breathe. It’s a self portrait, really, in all of its ingloriousness & probably an attempt to disavow any notions that anyone may have about my physical nature. The toll of half-a-Century on this mortal coil expressed in its full regalia, consumed by poor decisions, imperfections magnified by the waters of the disease, and the reaching for a cure that will never come. There’s more, but why be wordy?
Challenges were many in the creation of this artwork. Underwater is one of the hardest things to replicate in the constraints of my current software. So the ice is reskinned rocks, the bubbles are reskinned and modified confetti, and the splash is a raindrop, magnified 500 times, modded and reskinned in glass settings.
This was really an exercise in playing around with materials and settings on a primitive to make a #mirror – but the thing about mirrors is that you can’t have a figure in the mirror doing something different or looking different, so I built a way to accomplish this. The theme is #acceptance of ourselves. When we are young, like the #lady on the left, we think we’re #ugly or #awkward or a myriad of other faults; yet when we’re older, as is the same #woman on the right, we look back with compassion on just how absolutely #beautiful we really were. Time has a way of making us see our full #potential – then we’re gone. #art #digital #new
I put this together to represent the sudden realization of one’s mortality. About the #art – so there’s the #gateway with who knows what is on the other side, a new world? Or nothing? The #tentacles represent #cancer which is the sneakiest of things that can kill you. The mysterious #woman represents #death (it’s a positive association, IMO dudes don’t have the requisite compassion to be the ferryman – and there is irony in the term). Throw in #trees and #flowers as the connection to our world, #light from beyond, et voila. #digitalart #painting #new
My first #artwork in a minute. I’m #rendering another angle now that I think might be better. Instead of explaining what I was getting at with this #painting what do you think I was expressing? #art #digital #woman #midcenturymodern #digitalpainting
The Cage – another angle. I think I like this better.
Close up of Winter’s Odium, Looking Head-onI’m being told that, as an artist, I need to explain my work and process more. This bit of advice comes from a source that I came across when trying to figure out how to break into the big leagues of the art world – besides spending tens of thousands on a BFA/MFA which will get me connections. I’ve never liked networking, which explains job-hunting difficulties in the past. Plus, a degree in the arts isn’t my cup of tea. I’d rather draw exclusively on the creativity inside and discover things on my own – like the measurements involved in the human face, or the structure of leaves.
Winter’s OdiumBut I digress. About my latest work, at first glance, it looks like a kid had a tantrum while holding paint. Yet there is a lot more going on in the work than initially presents itself.
Like an onion, but not an ogre, this painting has layers. The overall theme of the work is the transition from winter to spring.
Initially, the painting was inspired by a cherry tree I saw when coming off the escalator at Federal Center SW, in DC. It was way too early, and the tree’s blossoms were interacting with a nearby streetlight in an awesome way. Yes, it’s the little things in life.
Winter’s Odium, Side Angle, Close UpMy idea was to paint the tree / light combo as if I were a passenger in a car speeding by. I’m still going to do another work based on this idea, but for this one, a shiny object was thrown in my way early in the process.
If you know me, I have a morbid side. I’ll wait for the eye rolls and statements of strenuous affirmation to stop…. Okay, I love crime shows (‘Dexter’ anyone?, ‘Forensic Files’?) and horror movies.
How It Looks on a Wall, Left AngleSo I was watching ‘Midnight Meat Train’, a slasher flick that made its way back onto Netflix after years of being absent. The movie is about a butcher harvesting humans on late night trains in NYC for a group of primordial monsters.
What does this have to do with the painting? I’m getting there 🙂 There is this part in the movie where this girl is being dragged along the bloody floor of the train. A thought occurred to me, so I paused the movie. I looked at the scene, and then looked at my painting. I cocked my head sideways, and then rotated the painting 90 degrees. I had it! I would paint the death of winter in the colors of spring.
How It Looks on a Wall, Right AngleThere’s another part of the movie that talks about art, which resonated with me, but I don’t want to stray off topic too much. So this girl is being dragged along the bloody floor, I thought to myself that it looks like winter being dragged off by spring. The hands were the trees, while the floor was time. You can see the result under the layers of color; look for the red and bone colors.
The next day, as my depression was at a momentary winter of its discontent, I thought maybe I should brighten up the scene, turn it to spring – but in an abstract sense. I broke out the colors, et voila. Greens and pinks symbolize the blooming of spring.
Head-on Shot with Overhead LightOver the succeeding days, I added light; which I’m infatuated with. You can see the sunlight reflected in the yellows and the flashes of white. The white was inspired by what happens when you’re riding (hopefully not driving) in a car with your eyes closed and the Sun is flashing through the trees.
So that is it in a nutshell. I really don’t pre-plan my work – beyond thinking about how something should go in my head. Once the paint starts flying, as in this case literally all over the room (security deposit revoked), I go where my instincts tell me to go.
Winter’s Odium, March 2017, 18″ x 24″. Acrylic on canvas. The variety of angles shows how it could look on your wall. For Sale, $600 (I need to make up that security deposit).
It’s not my worst, there’s a couple I haven’t shown anyone. Still, I’m putting this one aside. I can’t think of how I can make it work, so I’m moving on. On the positive side, I have done something for March; which has not been the greatest month for me.
About it? It started as a concept called Fruit Fly. I was going to do oranges with gossamer wings – don’t ask, sometimes I don’t know where my ideas come from. I eventually abandoned that, and went with Butterflies, since it’s Spring. The title evolved from the original fruit (sliced oranges), the wine-like background, and the beverage I was drinking at the time.
Let’s entertain for a moment that someday, I will paint well enough to earn a spot in the Met; even if it’s in the restrooms. When curators look at my body of work, they will see that my realism paintings tend to be utilitarian and dark. They will dissect my state of mind during the creation of the painting and find things with which to create parallels.
Take ‘Moving On’, my latest, as an example. They’ll say there’s a certain eerie loneliness about it. References and connections will be made to social issues and mental illness. They’ll wonder why I’ve painted Vermeer’s ‘Woman Holding a Balance’ as the only thing hanging on the wall, really the only detailed object. The relative emptiness of the rest of the scene stands in stark contrast to the focused area.
If I had to make up a backstory as to the inspiration, I’d say the painting is about ending one journey and beginning another. In this case, the woman is moving out; from a failed relationship, or something else – it’s all in the viewer’s mind.
There is irony in the fact I stopped work on it today, March 11, 2017, which would have been the two year anniversary of my last relationship – A wonderful woman, she dodged a bullet. I wish her the best.
But the painting is not really about any of this. Realism is boring, tedious work. I like rapid, flowing strokes and not contained or restrained lines. I want the brush to dance on the canvas, which is why I got bored and decided to go back to abstract acrylics.
