AERONAUTOil on canvas, 40 X 30 inches, 2009
"Aeronaut" was a second piece accepted by The Delaplaine 2009 Juried Exhibit.
Sometimes it's just good to have fun.
Monday, June 22, 2009
Aeronaut Shows at Delaplaine
AERONAUTOil on canvas, 40 X 30 inches, 2009
"Aeronaut" was a second piece accepted by The Delaplaine 2009 Juried Exhibit.
Sometimes it's just good to have fun.
Tricycle Wins Honorable Mention
TRICYCLEOil on canvas, 22 X 28 inches, 2008
Wednesday, January 16, 2008
Why do I draw and paint
Why do I draw and paint? I have no choice. Its more than a compulsion, it's an addiction that comes with both the euphoria of success and the depression of failure. For me this emotional roller coaster is a way of life entwined within the artistic process and is unpredictable while at the same time irresistible.
The gift of creativity is both a blessing and a curse. There is praise and rejection; recognition and indifference. There is self-discovery and self-denial. There is affirmation and doubt. Everything internal and external is in opposition. My work, or rather my play is a reflection of myself. I have no direction and I ascribe to no particular school or style as I wander the wilderness of my own imagination. Yet while I am there I find the most remarkable things. My medium is the process and the imagery is usually fantasy. Anything that I create is significant only in that it exists at all. Above all else I have come to accept nothing seriously especially myself.
I do not desire to paint pretty pictures or pictures that most people would hang on their walls at home. Instead I prefer to paint pictures that are interesting to look at and are not easily forgotten. Sometimes I paint disturbing images that challenge the orthodox, the status quo and convention because for me there are no questions that cannot be asked or no subjects that cannot be approached providing that they are sufficiently tempered by art to make them palatable. Art is the mirror to safely view the intolerable and the incomprehensible. Medusa’s reality is a bitter pill and without the arts we would all turn to stone.
Growing up and working in the Midwest I learned to enjoy the outdoors, the land and the people that make up a somewhat overly idealistic rural and often irrational society. I also learned very early in life that orthodoxy stifles creativity; therefore, being creative, I had no choice but to learn how to reject those orthodoxies while at the same time not becoming self-destructive. I had to learn how to question everything and discard anything that has no practical value to me. I found sound footing in reason, enlightenment and science. I found solace in accepting constant change and living with frustration.
Discarding convention and exploring new ideas and finding new ways to visualize the world has always been heresy. Artists are heretics and it did not take me long to find out that the world is not safe for a heretic. I took refuge in solitude. Still I cannot turn my back on 5000 years of Western Culture. I see it all around me. I see artistic inspiration in the democracy of Athens and the great republics of Rome that continue to live on in our nations soul. I see the waxing and waning of freedom with each new rebirth that comes alive in the arts. I see Michelangelo’s Florence, the European Reformation of Rubens and the revolutionary Spain of Picasso.
For me, my only freedom is drawing and painting. It’s my world where I can explore ideas by drawing lines around them and let images emerge on their own that are unique even if I am deliberately trying to copy someone else. Every creative hand has its own unique voice. When I draw and paint I have a voice, a small voice, like a child scratching lines in the wet sand on the ocean shore.
Most of all its fun.
The gift of creativity is both a blessing and a curse. There is praise and rejection; recognition and indifference. There is self-discovery and self-denial. There is affirmation and doubt. Everything internal and external is in opposition. My work, or rather my play is a reflection of myself. I have no direction and I ascribe to no particular school or style as I wander the wilderness of my own imagination. Yet while I am there I find the most remarkable things. My medium is the process and the imagery is usually fantasy. Anything that I create is significant only in that it exists at all. Above all else I have come to accept nothing seriously especially myself.
I do not desire to paint pretty pictures or pictures that most people would hang on their walls at home. Instead I prefer to paint pictures that are interesting to look at and are not easily forgotten. Sometimes I paint disturbing images that challenge the orthodox, the status quo and convention because for me there are no questions that cannot be asked or no subjects that cannot be approached providing that they are sufficiently tempered by art to make them palatable. Art is the mirror to safely view the intolerable and the incomprehensible. Medusa’s reality is a bitter pill and without the arts we would all turn to stone.
Growing up and working in the Midwest I learned to enjoy the outdoors, the land and the people that make up a somewhat overly idealistic rural and often irrational society. I also learned very early in life that orthodoxy stifles creativity; therefore, being creative, I had no choice but to learn how to reject those orthodoxies while at the same time not becoming self-destructive. I had to learn how to question everything and discard anything that has no practical value to me. I found sound footing in reason, enlightenment and science. I found solace in accepting constant change and living with frustration.
Discarding convention and exploring new ideas and finding new ways to visualize the world has always been heresy. Artists are heretics and it did not take me long to find out that the world is not safe for a heretic. I took refuge in solitude. Still I cannot turn my back on 5000 years of Western Culture. I see it all around me. I see artistic inspiration in the democracy of Athens and the great republics of Rome that continue to live on in our nations soul. I see the waxing and waning of freedom with each new rebirth that comes alive in the arts. I see Michelangelo’s Florence, the European Reformation of Rubens and the revolutionary Spain of Picasso.
For me, my only freedom is drawing and painting. It’s my world where I can explore ideas by drawing lines around them and let images emerge on their own that are unique even if I am deliberately trying to copy someone else. Every creative hand has its own unique voice. When I draw and paint I have a voice, a small voice, like a child scratching lines in the wet sand on the ocean shore.
Most of all its fun.
Friday, December 21, 2007
Special United Creators Award
This is a nice feather for the cap. It was an international competition and for me a real honor
United Creators Announces the Winning Artists of Its Second Online Contest 2007
United Creators, an exclusive and ground-breaking fine arts organization dedicated to advancing emerging and exceptional global artistic talent, is proud to announce the winning artists of its second online arts competition to discover, recognize and honor excellence in the global visual arts.
Saturday, December 15, 2007
Dancing Satyrs
Dancing Satyrs
Oil on wood panel, 11 inches X 14 inches, 2007
Satyrs were forest creatures descended from an ancient race of people, “the hairy ones,” who lived in southern Europe. They are usually depicted with human bodies; pug nosed faces, horns, and the lower body of a goat with a tail. Playful, carefree and mischievous they are one of the more delightful mythological characters. Satyrs were very comfortable around humans. To have one visit a home and partake of a meal was a great honor which brought a family good luck.
The most notable Satyr was Pan an ancient Greek God, musician and protector of small children and animals. Shakespeare’s “Puck” in “Midsummer’s Night Dream” was a Satyr.
It is my belief that stories about Satyrs might be remnants of ancient histories of a time when Neanderthals and Modern Humans cohabited territories in what are now southern France and northern Spain.
Drawing and Painting Mythology
Western culture is deeply rooted in Greek and Roman mythology and by revisiting the ancient stories, sometimes light heartedly; this artist hopes to rekindle interest in them. Today’s imagery and arts are almost void of the dynamic and allegorical characters that have influenced so much of our music, language and the sciences.
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