Manic Expression

I wrote this a few months ago in a notebook. Sometimes I write about making art then come across it at a later date only to find that I don't really hold the same idea that I did then. This is pretty normal, as we all grow and change our perspective evolves. The only reason I say this is that what I am posting I don't disagree with. I found something I had scribbled in a yellow paper note pad a couple months ago. A few people have asked me about the cycles in my work.

"Recent turns in my work make it hard to deny the cyclical nature of my efforts. This is fine in the way of learning and progressing in combining different attitudes of perspective, but it does feel a little like running in circles. To break it is the challenge. My cyclical evolution needs to give way to linear progress at some point. This would force me to stick to a specific attitude long enough to see some form of true academic refinement. I am not satisfied enough with any of the attitudes I've been working in to devote my complete attention to it. This will stay on my mind until I stumble on to something in my searching that I am excited enough about to sacrifice the rest to attend to. My plan for searching is to become more manic in attitude, every emotion, every idea, each gesture I must carry out to It's most vivid true realization, unabashedly."

This was written before the "Evolution of a Letter" series. Obviously you can see that those letters were a manifestation of these sentiments.

Older Work on Paper

These two "head towers" were made some time back as part of a playful portrait study of Jeffrey Luttrell, a dear friend of mine. I drafted the face by pen, from the left, from the right, and from the center, then scanned to a digital format, repeated the three images by stacking them. After I stacked them, I printed off several copies on sturdy paper, then applied oil paints with razor blades.

Prints only, $100 a print.

This man and woman riding were both part of a graphic design project for a friend and business associate. These were among the not chosen.

Water Color & Charcoal

These are a couple of pictures I made in the kitchen of our old downtown apartment. Charcoal and water color and mixed media, on paper. They both have homes and are NFS.

*door to studio

"Letter #8"

Oil, acrylic, latex paint

19" x 19", framed

$155-

"Waiting Children"

oil, acrylic, spray, pastel.

4'3" x 2'3"

$550-

"Lady"

Oil, acrylic

3'1" x 2'8"

$ 300-

"Western Spirituality"

mixed media

5'3" x 4'3" , framed canvas

$12oo-

The Evolution of a Letter

This series of pictures I created based on my hand writing. As part of my life involves making artwork, other parts involve the motions that most of us carry on as functioning citizens. Through the tasks of daily life, one day it struck me as I was writing something down, "Hey, this feels like that one thing I really enjoy doing called drawing." So I decided to experiment, I began substituting my handwriting in my pictures, removing whatever typical drawing may have occured in the process. I built the rest of the painting on the skeleton of my handwriting.

So as not to be just writing jibberish as I worked, I decided to write letters to friends and family, and then keep writing over the writing, to make it illegible. I thought, if I know people will never actually read the letters I wont have to edit any content, or emotion. This helped to form an emotionally harmonious cohesiveness, and developed into some very expressive gestural riffs. So as the process started rolling along, I gave myself more and more liberty with how I was abstracting and reinventing letters and words.

My mind wandered during the countless hours of creating this series. I thought about how, like in these paintings, words are very much just a skeleton. It is what is between the words, what surrounds them and fills them up that gives them value. How words from our past change and evolve as we gain experience and context. The longer and more vivid our journey is, the more meat we can put on the words which were once just skeletons. FIll them with emotion, jest, compassion, boldness, gratitude, and many things we lacked while being younger. I also thought about how ironic it is that hand written letters, and paintings are both fading out of fashion. Enjoy these paintings, and write someone a letter....

"Letter #3"

Oil, acrylic, pastel, latex.

4.5' tall - Stretched canvas

SOLD

"Letter # 3"

Oil, acrylic, charcoal, pastel.

5'2" tall - stretched canvas

$800-

"Letter #6"

Acrylic, latex paint, charcoal.

19"x 19" framed

SOLD-

"Letter #4"

Oil, acrylic, charcoal, spray paint, oil pastel.

4'4" tall, framed.

$450-

"The Evolution of a Letter"