Forest She Creature

Sharing my work with the world through social media is wonderful. However, sharing a static photo of a painting has its shortcomings.

One of the disadvantages of seeing an image in the digital world is the viewer can’t experience the physical magic of walking past the piece, stepping back, and getting close to the detail. So this report with a work of art is a unique engagement.

For this reason, I make short videos of my paintings, drawings, and mixed media pieces where movement becomes part of seeing the work.

Painting of my Forest She Creature

Artist Talk at Gallery 825

Thank you everyone who came to my artist's talk at Gallery 825.

I'm pictured here with my painting Horses of The Apocalypse next to curator Cynthia Penna. The talk gives me an opportunity to speak about the hidden process of the work and hear the questions and insights of viewers which is always interesting for me.

What's Real in a Painting

I had just finished the painting. It wasn't even dry. A mother and her son, maybe five years old, happened to be walking past my garage studio while the door was open.

The boy rushed up the driveway and asked, "Did you do that? "I said, "yes." He then asked, "Which superhero is that?" I said, "not a very good one; I don't think he'll get off the ground with that pot belly." the little boy insisted, "all superheroes can fly. Even if Superman got fat, he would fly". I said, "Well, if you say so, I'm not convinced." He said, you should know that you painted this. But, I told him, I understand very little about what I'm painting, especially while I'm painting". He looked concerned and said again, "but you painted it." I said, that's true, but I don't do much of the deciding about what is in my painting; I'm just trying to figure out how to paint it. He looked at me with his head tilted, perplexed.

I said, '"you don't decide what you're going to dream, do you? It's something like that". Quickly, the kid turned away from me towards the painting and started running with his hands out. His mother called out, and I managed to stop him before his little outstretched paws hit the canvas surface. I realized he was going to settle this debate of what was real and what wasn't by touching the image.

Although I don't relish the idea of his little fingers sliding through the wet paint, there was something profoundly beautiful to me that this picture, this two-dimensional illusion, carried enough weight for this kid to want to "feel it" for himself.

It’s a pity how being a grown up stops us from “living” in a painting, song or poem. It’s the wonderful thing about being a kid.