How did all this begin with art? Maybe you could say that it started before I was born. Both my parents are artists. My mother is a painter and father paints as well, but he studied to be a sculptor. From a young age, I was given art supplies, and was raised in an environment surrounded by art and artists. Making art was never contrived. It was just what I did. If you grew up in a family of mechanics you would probably learn to work on cars. I grew up around artists, so I learned to make art. Not as traditional calling, but what I was born to do and what I was raised to do. Whether people like my art or not I would continue to make it. In fact, there are years of art that I made that no one saw. Fish gotta swim, birds gotta sing, and I have to make art.
Where does my art come from? Whats is the motivation?
I paint and draw a lot of people. Drawing the human face is a challenge. It changes quickly with light and expression. It also can be a simple process. We as people want to see faces. Are eyes and brains are designed to recognize a face. So with a few subtle marks a face is created. With too much accuracy less people relate to face. Our eyes will turn that simple ambiguous face into someone they know. That is why I try not to get to detailed. Really its a comic book trick. Generic characters are more relatable to more people.
I paint landscapes I love nature. The image of landscape like the human face is imprinted on our ancient selves. A valley with a water source. A plain with a mountains in the distance. A forest clearing. A coastline. We have been looking at these places for thousands of years. That is why we relate to them. They are part of us.
I paint boats in the clouds because it has a spiritual meaning to me. It is the soul being guided by invisible currents through a divine world. This is our soul being guided by providence or a higher power or grace or meditation. Whatever that invisible force is in your life.
The Allegorical paintings take the most work. I study mythology and Jungian Psychology for these paintings. I look for how myths and our archetypes connect. Really what I am looking for is how these inner stories combine and overlap in new ways. Maybe funny ways or unexpected ways. Sometimes if I am lucky the combination has a wordless and non intellectual resonance. The viewer sees these images anew. That is my hope. These stories and images, that are part of us, help us and guide us. But we are so filled with shallow images designed to make us consume, that we are forgetting the thing that makes us whole. The old stories, our original stories. I feel a sense of responsibility, to carry these old stories as best I can.
I first started selling my art work about 14 years ago. My wife was running an art gallery and I put some painting of children with animals that I had made. That was the beginning. I have had a few Art Show at Myra Hoefer Design in Healdsburg, I have shown at inclusions gallery in San Francisco, and I a have shown small self promoted shows in the Napa Valley. Now I am onto a new adventure of self promotion through my website and social media. Its new and exciting and it seems to be working.
The Process
I make a lot of mistakes with painting. The way painting is initially going is not always the way that it ends up. I just keep painting. Eventually something happens. A connection is made or a connection is broken. I try to let the painting follow its own path. Except for when I dont. Some times I just know how the painting will look before I even begin to paint. I have already painted it in my mind. The process of painting is a process of uncovering and discovering what does not work. By understanding what does not belong, then all that is left to paint is what does belong. Also trying to describe the act of painting is like trying to describe swimming to someone who has never been in the water. “Kick your legs and flail your arms, and you’ll be swimming in no time.”