How did you start with art?
For me it was never about talent, it was always about curiosity and exploration. My mother enrolled me in Art Museum classes when I was six because I was always drawing. Since then, I have just been making art, building up from one painting to the next, until painting became a way of life.
What artists or movements have had an impact on you? I always go back to the my beloved French painters, (Cezanne, Pissarro, Monet, and later Joan MItchell. These artist paint because they express raw emotion coupled with the formal compositional problems of painting. I express my most passionate realities, (the story beneath ordinary everyday life things), producing on canvas much of what people feel when they get religious.
What themes come up in your art and do the memories and personal experiences reflect? The constantly changing light and changing seasons inspire me. My art books are my best friends which I look to for company at night. Painting breeds a solitary life, and I have been especially reclusive all during the pandemic, which has been excellent for my painting progress. No stress, no need to achieve, no need to be successful, no need to be anywhere but inside the painting. My paintings express the times in which I live, e.g., watching caregivers work so hard to keep covid victims alive, the injustice of war, and whatever is going on in the world that touches me deeply.
I used to seek perfection, but having let that need go, I am enjoying the painting process so much more, and I’m creating better works because of it.
What is the significance of material and color?
I place oil paint onto the canvas and then scrape away what doesn’t work, with a pallet knife. Nothing scraped gets discarded. Instead, I combine used paint into a mud color, using additional colors to either warm up or cool down the temperature ranges of them. These color relationships are then added back to the work, creating volume that becomes the composition of my painting.
Who or what are some of your artistic inspirations?
The first thing I do in the morning is write down the thoughts and feelings I am currently experiencing or the faint memories from a dream. Writing these down will often bring me insights and set my emotions for the day. Later, when I stand in front of the canvas, I have no words left, only the color in front of me exists. This becomes a meditation, as I stand motionless, waiting for the intention that will tell my hands when to pick up the paint brushes, what colors to mix, and how to apply them. I do not get in the way: I listen, trust have faith, and wait until this happens. I stand motionless for a long time, so I am not pushing at the painting; rather, it is telling my hands how to move. Every day brings a different feeling; I will spend the day searching for it in color. For example, in early June the earth becomes a pale, alive green, then a rich emerald green in mid-summer, then the green gets tired and dulls in late August, (when the angle of the sun becomes sharper, making everything look high contrast). After painting all day, I then walk 2-3 miles at sunset, ‘to look out.’ I continue to see the painting in all its detail even while it is no longer in front of me, as I look out, fodder for the next day.
What are you working on right now and what is next?
I love what I don't know, so the word 'search' is what is next. This question has everything to do with inner faith. I seek something intangible, which may or may not reveal itself that day. It’s the pursuit that interests me. Its form, never static, keeps changing as I go after it. Being productive in the studio has to do with the willingness to be lost, to search, uncover things, and stay the course day after day; thus, a lifetime spent. I used to seek perfection, but having let that need go, I am enjoying the painting process so much more, and I’m creating better works because of it.
What is your favorite art accident?
They happen every painting. My favorite one is the one not yet painted.
What do you consider the role of an artist today?
Because I teach, I know how to get students to become like water, (flowing, moving possibilities), and move around rock, (obstacles). They get stuck so I take time seeing what they can do to open the space back up, rather than give up. This requires having faith which I can inspire by example. Art lifts spirits, which is the role of the artist, to just keep looking forward to renewing spirit, a reinventing of one's self constantly. I seek something intangible, which may or may not reveal itself that day. It’s the pursuit that interests me. Its form, never static, keeps changing as I go after it. Being productive in the studio has to do with the willingness to be lost, to search, uncover things, and stay the course day after day; thus, a lifetime spent. I used to seek perfection, but having let that need go, I am enjoying the painting process so much more, and I’m creating better works because of it. The role of the artist is to inspire faith.