16″x20″ mixed media
If my paintings were sculptures I normally sculpt in clay. I add and add layers. This was created like a stone sculpture, I started with a wild underpainting, and then eliminated details to reveal the focal point. Negative space is what this is all about, turns out you can paint a beautiful tree by only painting sky.
Walking to School No•6
18″x24″ grey and black ink on newsprint
I read once Hemmingway always stopped writing mid sentence at a really good part so it was easier to get back into writing the next day. It turns out that your subconscious keeps “working on the project” as you move on to other things. I try to capture some of that subconscious grunt work by making notes about ideas, sketches, underpaintings, color plans… there are just started and half finished paintings all over my studio. Now, to let my brain work out these paintings as I move on to a mountain of laundry!
20″x16″ watermedia and collage on canvas.
“Now shall I walk or shall I ride?
‘Ride,’ Pleasure said;
‘Walk,’ Joy replied.” — W.H. Davies
Walking to School Series No•5
“Some people walk in the rain, others just get wet.” – Roger Miller
Walking to School Series No•4
“Slice a pear and you will find that its flesh is incandescent white. It glows with inner light. Those who carry a knife and a pear are never afraid of the dark.” -Yann Martel
12” square pastel on sanded paper
“A pear will never fall into a closed mouth.” – Italian proverb
That proverb is more poetic than “you won’t win the lottery if you never buy a ticket.” Whatever your game is folks, put your neck out there. You just might luck into a delicious mouthful of Pear!
6” square pastel on sanded paper
“The pear is the grandfather of the apple, its poor relation, a fallen aristocrat, the man-at-arms of our domains, which once, in our humid land, lived lonely and lordly, preserving the memory of its prestige by its haughty comportment.” – Francois Pierre de la Varenne
12” square pastel on sanded paper
“All men should have a drop of treason in their veins, if nations are not to go soft like so many sleepy pears.” – Rebecca West
6×6 pastel on sanded paper
“There are only ten minutes in the life of a pear when it is perfect to eat.” – Ralph Waldo Emerson
I choose my pears carefully: based on their blush, hip curvature, and stem length and leaning. Even when I don’t paint them, I love to appreciate their beauty, on my counter, until the small window of time when they are perfectly ripe and should be enjoyed: room temperature, eaten with a spoon.
6”x6” pastel on sanded paper
“It is, in my view, the duty of an apple to be crisp and crunchable, but a pear should have such a texture as leads to silent consumption.” – Edward Bunyard, ‘The Anatomy of Dessert’
