Updates, Thoughts, and Inconsequential Ramblings of this Particular Artist.

  I have always had an affinity for plants, especially tropicals. Approximately a year ago I discovered a love for cacti. In this brief time I seem to have accumulated around twenty-two of these prickly guys. As someone that has to be consistently busy, I have had to learn a little patience. I am especially attracted to the variety of shape and texture that occurs amongst the many different species. This makes sense when one considers the prominence of texture in my painting. I marvel at the slow unrelenting determination these plants have for survival, seemingly at peace within themselves, allowing growth to simply happen without fight.

Working as a retail clerk I have had more than one long bearded person make derogatory comments about higher education and even have had co-workers make fun of my education, because I studied the arts. Yes, it does make me mad because, all that I have had to go through, to achieve mine and the importance that holds. Am I broke in massive debt never to retire, working less than ideal jobs? The answer is a loud Yes! But that does not diminish what I have worked so hard for and cherish and value so much. Looking back thinking about my personal interactions with education, which is awfully painful and confusing. I am one of those learners, for better or worse, whose mind just functions differently. I myself almost went in another direction. My early education was not easy nor kind. For whatever reasons formal education did not come easily. I can remember as far back as second and third grades having to attend special group lessons during recess to learn to read. By the time I got to fifth ...

  "Untitled" 8"x 10" Acrylic/Mixed Media on Panel In recent years I have become more and more interested in collage especially with newspaper. Often stories get buried under layers of paint forever preserved to the history from which they came and yet, in the present, sealed to the surface of the panel. This said, the outermost layers appeal to me more as visual texture than content. 

Every visual artist regardless of discipline contemplates the importance of process in their work. For myself, process begins well before the application of paint. With the meditative milling of lumber for stretchers and strainers, stretching canvas, lycra, or paper, and the many layers of paint, process embeds itself. All the seemingly ugly unimportant, and unpolished bits, coalesce to form the soul of something beautiful. I also believe in our professional worlds that the scar tissues of our less than perfect selves the raw humanness of mistakes, the evidence of our very being coalesces to form the soul of our work. 

My training at The University of Georgia was very academic and for lack of a better way of saying a very figurative program. Relentless in-depth study of human anatomy, dissecting cadavers in the biology lab, learning to draw and study in the traditions of the great masters. Model after model, pose after pose, hours and hours of figure work, how I miss the academic rigor to figure drawing. Despite this immense joy, or maybe I should say “because” of this rigor I discovered a disciplined approach to my practice. I have a genuine  love for exploring color and texture, often producing my final product out of many layers. I of course am fascinated and always contemplating our shared human need to scratch out a meaning, interpretation, purpose or simply what is found to be beautiful in our shared world for the short time we are here. I have always been pulled to the primitive, the simple hand scratching, chipping, carving, “I have this to say !”. Whatever “this” is,of course varies from...

 Although I wish all projects could be elaborate, the reality is that many are small everyday tasks. However this does not diminish the importance of any task to a client. I have always tried to bring my best inclinations of composition and color to any task no matter how big or small.