Some days I know my art is like water. Out of the tap of creativity it flows destined to be swallowed in the hunger of creation and made into dung. Those are usually the days when I don’t interact with the girl who inspires me, or when I paint early in the day, or when it rains or when it doesn’t rain. Then I have the days when I water my cactus, feel a moment of peace in realization that life is sublime in ways that I never realized before, the girl who inspires me pleasantly surprises me and when I set to painting I know that what was once dung has fertilized a day of creativity that I applaud as my best works. The days in between I use to finish what I have started and sleep.

Colors and where to put them I find can be ultra frustrating when a piece is fresh. The scary white of possibility plagues me at times. I love color and its ability to draw the eye. I make things for the reflective viewer that the casual passer by will not at all realize. Pieces are created in large sections that grow more detailed as I feel more comfortable with the special components of the piece. In a way you could say that I am afraid of open spaces. My antithesis to claustrophobia on canvas as if in some way I was actually in the art work itself living, breathing, hating yogurt, filling in my world as I see fit. Many times I choose a color or make someone around choose a color to start a piece with. I like to force interaction with people and the production of my art at times. I choose the shy person who claims to know nothing to pick the starting color because they will get the most out of the experience of its application than any other person. They are now a part of the piece with me. That experience I find to be very powerful.

When I start many pieces I will start with a line. Sometimes I make this line straight from the tube. Sometimes I take pains to apply the line just so with a brush. Sometimes I don’t take pains to apply the line I just make a rough line to be cleaned up later. Many times I paint a line that too many seems chaotic, unplanned and silly at best. That may be true and has not been ruled out; that said, I find a spot on the canvas to satisfy the need for a line and I line. I find a place that demands a blend and I blend and reflect. I never start with a dot as I find that to be beyond my desires and plainly irrational. I feel a full range of emotion that usually is me not knowing what to do next or frustration with the girl. Once these components are instilled in the piece, many times over many layers, I then like to utilize the dot. The dot in my opinion is the most powerful tool in the artist’s arsenal. The dot can make something become something completely different or the dot can demand thousands of other dots; strategically located, to compose the desired outcome; but no matter what the dot always prevails. I enjoy the dot because the dot adds a level of emotion to a piece in such a way that is unmatched by either line or blend.

Preparing my largest canvas to date in preparation for the painting of The Master Conversationalist

Many times when I am searching for something to do next I see if I can fashion an eye or the symbolic concept of an eye in the piece in a way that I have overlooked before while taking pains not to destroy something I took pains to create. Eyes have a great draw for me as a person can read so much in another’s eyes. The gentle manifests itself better in no other medium and the cruel is given away fastest up front for all to see. The power of dots revisited.

I consider line a fanatic with less power than the dot. Line can do so much but is much more pigeon holed. Line is intended to help dots transcend boundaries. Dots give line purpose and reference in my work. I like to think of lines as memories; connecting my life in a story, my art into form, my cares and thoughts into symbols. Every line I paint had a corresponding thought that accompanied its birth. Many thoughts are technical, some emotional, many about the girl who inspires me.

I have never wanted to paint trees, people; I have wanted to paint the things that make a person question these things without painting things as we know them. I allow the individual to make the art of interpretation as original as the choice of color itself. That is the goal of my art and many times the concept behind my blends. I blend in a desire to draw the eye and make it question the surroundings it begins and ends with. A blend can take the eye smoothly through swashes of color that would be cantankerous if left alone or the blend can make the cantankerous appear to harass the eye and draw the questions that have started the person looking in the first place. Blends are like lines that drew tears. Blends are life in action, moving, redesigning themselves as they progress, blends are our ways and our means, and blends are occasionally scary. Blends are dots nursery of creative energy. Blends are my friend but blends are rare.