Life Comes Too Quickly

Life Comes Too Quickly, oil on canvas 36h x 24 inches. The inspiration for this piece came from three places/events.  The photo was taken initially on a bike ride from Midtown to Downtown in Phoenix.  I was feeling a little bit frustrated with what was on the easel, so I decided to go for a ride and my habit now is to try to take a camera with me wherever I go. I was aimlessly cycling around with no real place to go or mission. I didn't even care how fast or how far. I still ended up doing a few sprints though. I was struck by the loneliness of this parking lot and wondered for a moment about the lives of the people who were still up around midnight and those who were fast asleep. The second piece of inspiration came from when I was flying home from attending the opening at Abend Gallery in Denver.  I was listening to Jesu and reading Sit Down and Shut Up by Brad Warner. One of the verses stuck in my head "Life Comes Too Quickly". I was feeling exhausted a combination of work and travel and it hit home. My life is flying past me at a million miles an hour it seems and I'm not actually being mindful of the moments I'm currently in.  Last, but not least as I was working on this painting there were a few days of rain and one of them I went for a ride despite the wet roads. I didn't go too crazy, but I passed by a few wet parking lots and decided that even though the source photo was of a dry parking lot didn't mean I couldn't paint a wet one.

This brings me to say something about art.  At the last openings I've encountered folks who want more meaning and some who want less within my works. For those who wanted more I didn't think of what to say to them until weeks afterwards, but I think I can say it here.  Art has it's own intrinsic meaning beyond what the artist feels or intends it to mean or at least this artist.  So much of my work is about process.  I have this initial concept and then the work morphs from that. I also can't help, but feel like my subconscious is trying to tell me something about how I feel about things in my life. In other words - my subconscious knows what's eating me long before my conscious mind is aware of it.  In the end after I complete a painting or drawing - I'm lucky if I know what it means, but understand that the work has meaning whether or not I know what that is.

I think these days artists are way too concerned about their work having meaning.  I don't know why this is really, but my guess is that when people watch a movie or read a book there's always a "point to it".  The thing is this, does the author always know what the book is going to be about when they start writing? Can it be that they just have a flash of a storyline pop in their head. An outline of the characters, scene and plot.  As all the puzzle pieces fit together and the characters are fleshed out the author then follows them through the story and their morality (the author's voice) is then imprinted upon the piece.

It's the same for me as I paint, but my stories are told visually.  The challenge is to verbally express what I've already stated visually without losing the nuance expressed within my brushwork. 

Long Day's End

Long Day's End oil on canvas. 30w x 40h inches.  This is another painting for my solo show at Modified Arts this November the opening on the 3rd Friday November 20th.  It's based off of a photo I took on Market Street in San Francisco.

It's been a lot of fun returning to oils.  Over the summer with the studio just shy of 100 degrees with little humidity, it's been nice having a longer drying window.  Now that the Fall is finally here, I may need to switch over to faster drying mediums in order to get everything finished in time for the show.

The Weight

Finished The Weight this evening.  I had pretty much called this one done a few weeks back, but decided to rework things a bit this week. The title for the piece is inspired by the fact that the woman walking across the street seems to me weighed down by more than just her groceries. For me it's as if the weight of the world is upon her shoulders. I think we've all been there. It's really a slice of modern life.

A Sense of Loss and Letting Go

I finished A Sense of Loss and Letting Go late last night. I'm really glad that I pushed myself to complete this final piece for the show. In a lot of ways A Sense of Loss the first painting that dealt with this station was the start of  the series and when I was painting it back in March and April I didn't feel resolved. I knew the painting was done and that it was one possible solution to the subject matter, but I had other ideas of where to take it. I still do. This painting is yet another possible solution. I guess for me this is the station that I photographed first and the seed for the whole series. 

I think what strikes me about this station is how it feels like the bleached white dry javelina skull parts I come across when hiking down around Sierra Vista and Bisbee. This station sits with it's bent up awning and broken out windows as an empty shell like a pile of bones surrounded by future tumbleweeds in the middle of the Southern California desert outside of Barstow.  

Kingdom Come and Went

Just completed Kingdom Come and Went. It's another super wide piece. I think this format works really well for the abandoned gas station/desert works. I think it highlights the one aspect about the desert outside of the heat: it's expansiveness. The desert has several places where it's flat with mountains in the distance that in more humid climates would be obscured by the atmosphere. There's lots and lots of sky and the land just seems to stretch out before you in every direction; forever. It's odd to write about this, because this is really quite normal for a desert kid like me. Whenever, I'm away from the Southwestern Deserts it may take a while, but I notice the lack of expansiveness and endless blue sky.

The title popped in my head right after finishing the painting. The title has some religious undertones, but I think for me personally it's my perception of how these small desert towns were once booming and now are a year or so from becoming ghost towns. I just imagine a gas station owner, perhaps a mechanic by trade who buys the a station just off the highway and runs a prosperous business. Then over time with more fuel efficient cars business just slowly slips away until he can no longer keep the doors open. It's as if all his dreams came true to own his own prosperous company, but times change and he finds it slip from his hands like grains of sand. Like his kingdom came and went before his eyes.

Clutching

Finished Clutching a small pen & ink and marker drawing. I titled it for the fact that the man walking was clutching his bag closely to him. When I look back at the photo the fact that his clothes are one to two sizes too big strikes me. That day I was cutting through the Tenderloin District in San Francisco after hitting some galleries just above Market Street. 

Well I guess I'm reminded of this a little today, because I just had a family that if they weren't homeless were darn near ask me for money today. I stated the truth that I didn't have any cash on me. I'm not one to give money really, but in all honesty, in this case I would have. I guess with that just happening I look at this drawing a little differently. The man in the background is clutching onto everything he has in that bag and the belongings in that bag may very well be all he has. I have no political point to make here beyond an awareness of the human condition.

I'm not a political artist and actually don't like mix politics with my work. I am generally like Edward Hopper and the painters of the Ashcan school focus on urban city life and the isolation of individuals, the herd mentality that comes with modern life and the movement of people through the city streets. I focus on the buildings and the wear and tear on them. In fact, the building paintings are portraits of societies' soul or the collective soul of all those who have passed through those buildings. I'm wondering if a portrait of the have and have nots will most likely emerge in my work rather unintentionally. Considering my manner of getting creative fodder for my paintings involves going out onto the street with a camera in hand. As my country becomes more economically divided it will undoubtedly become more pronounced on the streets I photograph.

Thinking About the Past

Started work this week on There's No Going Back.  It's another installment in the desert/abandoned gas station series.  I feel I need to come up with an actual name for the series.  I have been bouncing back and forth from calling it the abandoned gas station series to the desert series.  Well, it's both.  There has to be a better name for it however.

There's No Going Back actually sheds light on what this series of works is about.  Well, at least it came to me while painting last night.  The soundtrack for this series for the most part has been U2's - The Joshua Tree album.  I was listening to Red Hill Mining Town and the verse "there's no going back" hit me.  There is no going back!  I can travel up and down some of the same highways my family did in our nomadic days of moving all over the West, but all there is left of the gas stations, motels and eateries from those days are ruins or new structures that have gone in their places.  The formative figures of my childhood have passed, so the only connection to my childhood is my memories (represented by ruins) outside of my siblings.  The desolation of the desert is a perfect analogy for separation, isolation and loss.  It's a universal experience that everyone in the world will likely share sometime in their life and I just happen to be painting it.  I guess this body of work is really about coming to age.  

Isolated States - Completed

I completed Isolated States before leaving for vacation, but with the rush of getting everything together for the trip - I didn't have time to post. This station was in the middle of nowhere just East of Lordsburg, New Mexico. It was a very desolate place and the distance between the sign and the station made me think of how they were two isolated islands in a sea of dirt and gravel.

The last two works have been a little more desolate than the previous ones.  That has a lot to do with the environment and how hot the day was when I went shooting for the source photos. Maybe a little on how I felt that day as well. I start painting these pieces in my mind while photographing them.

I also think that these paintings are portraits of the buildings as living things in themselves. In this case two structures isolated from each other that face the extreme elements of this desolate landscape together, but hundreds of feet apart. In the summer it's hot, in the winter it's cold always windy with hardly any rain. 

The concept of buildings as living entities has been a big part of my work for the last several years and a big part of my return to realism. The first paintings where I returned from abstraction to realism contained buildings. From there I started taking source photos and taught myself to become a better street photographer and my work became more realistic. Of course keeping the abstract and collage elements within them. When I paint buildings I am painting their soul as a living being or the stain left by all those who have inhabited them. When I paint an old hotel or gas station I'm thinking of all the lives that have passed through them. The lover's quarrels and makeups, the family ups and downs, the lonesome travelers who have passed through, the life and times of the ownership and employees, and everything else that could've happened there. I feel the stain of time that haunts these places and while I paint these works I do my best to infuse them with those feelings.

Lonely Outpost Completed

I just completed Lonely Outpost. This last weekend I headed out to White Sands, NM for some fun. I also took some time to photograph several abandoned gas stations, motels, and cafes that were on the way.  There are a few good ones that I didn't see until after I flew past the freeway exit ramp and sometimes the only chance to turn around was 10 to 20 miles down the road. Next time...

When photographing one site over the weekend it occurred to me that maybe this new body of work isn't really that much of a divergence for me. When I consider that my artist statement states "that my interest is in capturing the ephemeral nature of our existence", "exposing the fragility of our existence" and "the effect mankind has had on the planet".  I can't help, but feel that this new body of work does all those things.  Granted the environments are not the urban environments I usually paint, but the message remains the same.  I'm just fleshing out my artistic vision a bit more.

The new body of work is also allowing me to explore some different color palette ideas.  I have always enjoyed when film and television directors have used color filters to mute the color of a film or cast a distinct hue on all of the scenes. It will be interesting to see how this influences the more urban works.

The Weight of the World

I finished The Weight of the World last night not long after my last post. It was one of those moments where I was working and I simply looked up and realized it was finished after I shored up the linens up above the figure.  I proceeded to start work in earnest on If I Only Could below.

With the speed in which this latest batch of paintings are flying off my easel I feel like I should take three months off from painting more often. It's  been like kinking up a hose for a few seconds and then letting go. I should finish If I Only Could this afternoon and I'll go ahead and start the next painting. I'm really in the zone right now, so I'm simply going to keep it going. I have three more works figured out, so I'll need to break this weekend and get going in the sketchbook and continue designing "The Unknown Lovers" series. The working title has shifted. I may not give the series a formal name. The works are related, but their supposed to function as stand alone paintings.

A Bad Day to Hang Laundry

I just finished A Bad Day to Hang Laundry.  I feel the painting really fits the mood of what the next body of work will be.  It's a small painting 12x24 inches, but it packs a punch.  I'm planning on performing a lot of small works for my upcoming show in September at the Lanning Gallery in Sedona, AZ.


This painting is the beginning of a large series of connected works that work together as well as individually.  I like to think of a body of work like a musical album.  The songs can be sold as singles, but together tell a story or establish a  definite mood.  The working title of the next show is Escape Plan.  I'm going to focus in on gritty portraits of individuals in different urban environments that are either attempting or desire to escape their environs, predicaments, other people or themselves.  

Above is the original sketch for A Bad Day to Hang Laundry and it's companion piece that I haven't named yet.  I guess it would be BDHL 2, but I'm not sure if I want to go 1,2,3, etc with this series.  The theme for this series is a tale of a boy and a girl who walk down the same streets, go to the same bookstores, restaurants, parks, and other places; yet they never meet.  I guess star crossed lovers that are perfect for each other if only they could meet.  I can hear Morrissey crooning now, if it were made into a short film. I guess a little bit of the inspiration for the series is the fact that my wife and I went to the same high school, but didn't meet each other until the second semester of our freshman year in college.


I'm not sure how the series will play out.  I'm just going to sketch, paint and repeat until I feel the series is done.

Guilty Glance

I finished up Guilty Glance yesterday, just in time to submit it for it's intended exhibit. I was keeping it completely black, white and grey for a possible submittal for that show, but the painting really needed color to come together.  Not much, but enough to give it a greater sense of depth. I do have to admit that I feel I've fallen into a pattern of being some what obsessive with each painting I paint. It seems as if my perfectionist streak has just been running wild. It's not really a terrible thing, but it unsettles me to be less prolific in a time when I desire to produce twice as much work than I am.


It might just be a phase and it will simply pass. So much of who I am as an artist goes on beneath the surface of my conscious mind. I may just be climbing up the steep slope of a new artistic plateau and once I get to the top my prolific nature and snap decisions will return. For this moment, I'm caught in the struggle of reinventing the wheel with each canvas I paint.

Redefining Nazareth

Today I had to strike out some of the work I'd done in the last couple days to redefine the center of the building and the store fronts. I can tell already that it will make for a better piece in the long run. Even back in art school I was blessed with a healthy philosophy, that there could be no sacred cow areas of a canvas. Yes, there are times when there is just a beautifully rendered portion of the canvas, but it just doesn't work with the whole. I have caught myself spending hours trying not to paint over it only to strike it out for the benefit of the canvas as a whole. All in all, I'm glad that the delivery up to the gallery was put off until Sunday. It has allowed me to not rush and make the right decisions for the painting. I'm still shooting to finish it by tomorrow afternoon. 


I have to admit that I have a tendency to set tight deadlines for myself from time to time. I guess after years of being a graphic designer I like to have a due dates to work towards. Right now I have lined up three more juried shows that I'm going to perform work for, along with doing more work for the gallery and putting a body of work together in order to make a show proposal to some University Galleries. Truthfully, all are self imposed to a certain extent. Without the deadlines I find that I get work done, but not as much work done as I would like to. I don't know why it's taken me so long to realize that working long hours to meet deadlines makes me happy. I've cursed deadlines for so long - only to realize they're a blessing in disguise.

Go Home

Go Home is almost finished.  Nothing but the fine details left to do and a few glazes. I started two other works to finish the Lines (working title) triptych up. I need to finish these works up before I make the first delivery up to Sedona this upcoming Saturday.  I'm building canvases Sunday for the completion of the Sedona show.  They have a lot of space, so I'm wanting to add at least four if not six large paintings 3'x6' to the show.

Getting ready for a trip to Seattle, WA and Portland, OR the week after the show. I plan to take a lot of urban photos while I'm there for source material.  I also feel like I need to get serious about a trip to New York to take street photos.  Frankly, I will not have the money to stay long, but even a day of taking photos and a couple days visiting museums and other sites would be worth it. 

17 down

I now have seventeen canvases done for the Modified show.  This weekend I started yet more paintings with a focus on small works.  I felt it was important to change the focus a little bit from large to medium canvases to the smaller ones.  I also spent more time in the sketch book.

Starting from the top Once Remembered 1, Threads 2, Night 2 and Night 1.  These are still following the Trapped In and Complements series sharing similar skyline motifs.  With the Threads series that I completed Today I was experimenting with new encaustic techniques using soft matte medium rather than wax.  I will be playing more with that technique latter.  I think that is what makes painting small canvases so important.  It's a place where you can focus in on new techniques and compositional elements of larger works.  It's also a great place to work on sketches without going to the full size canvas.

For the Modified exhibit I will have all sizes of paintings along with sketches.  I feel this year folks are going to be a little more strapped for cash than usual, so it will be nice to have framed sketches selling for $25 and up.  I'm going to have some really small sketches included in the mix as well.  I just want to have work for every price range.  I originally planned to self publish a book of my work to have for sale, but I don't feel comfortable with the timing.  I will create a book with the work of both these exhibits along with previous works that fit and have it up for sale over the summer.

Trapped In

The Trapped In series is going smoothly.  I'm going to start the next three of the series tomorrow evening. Right now I'm starting as many canvases as I can and just working them all up to between half to three quarters done.  It's nice to work several canvases up together.  It's the best way I've found to produce a solid body of work that hangs really well together.  I look at painting exhibits like LPs for musicians.  A band or performer cuts a record and they try to make all the songs fit together, sometimes the whole album tells a story or at least carries a mood.  I look at painting exhibits like that.  I try to have all the paintings tie into each other. I do have a few disparate ones here and there, but I'm sure I'll tie them in before April or I'll just hold back on hanging them.

Your Vanity Can Wait

Here's what is going on in the studio this week so far.  I'm back to producing work. I'm trying to make up for lost time without over extending myself.  The Getaway is coming along nicely.  I also knocked out a small 9x12 canvas entitled Your Vanity Can Wait.  I'm not sure what's with the title, but that is what popped into my head while working on it.  I know I'll understand some where down the road.  I would like to add some collaged elements, but I have to figure out what is appropriate. I think a postmark would do nicely, but I have to find the right one at the right size. I don't want to place something that is simply gratuitous and unnecessary to the work.  I don't feel it necessary for every work to have abstract or collage elements.  There's no formula here, I just paint and do what feels right.  Painting is so much about the dialog between the artist and the painting.  I honestly feel like the painting is already within the canvas - I just need to make it happen.  It's like that when I paint into old paintings and turn them into something different too.  Paintings, just like people grow and change.  I think my repainted canvases are sometimes my best because they have so much more history.