Bears Den Study 1

Bears Den Study 1

  oil on linen  9" x 12"

These studies allow me the freedom to battle with the surface quality and texture, color and value, the form and shallow, constricted space - allowing abstracted qualities to balance with the actual subject. Fairfield Porter, the American painter, wrote that the important thing about representation in painting are its abstract qualities and in abstract painting are its real qualities. I try to pursue that idea in my work.

Studies From Bears Den and a book to straighten things out

 Bears Den Study

  oil on linen  9" x 12"

March Morning at Bears Den

  oil on linen  12" x 16"    

I've been kicking around an idea for a book lately - a book about how learning to draw could save our entire nation. No sense in spending ones time on small ideas. Anyway, it came to mind when considering how we might get things started in a better direction for us all - as a former teacher of 32 years, these things do occupy my mind from time to time - and I figured we need folks today to be creative, hard working, and willing to take risks and explore. When one learns to draw and really see it involves abandoning preconceived notions, remaining humble and open, and completely committing to the process of exploration while ignoring what anyone thinks the result should or should not be. Just so happens this style of thinking and doing and even living are also found in the best of our science research, mathematics, and medicine. It even works for all the art forms and especially in education of our children! So, if everyone was taught how to truly draw and see and joyfully engage the task while embracing chaos and accepting failure as opportunity - WOW, it just might straighten out this old world.

Of course, it also would lead some folks to make a bunch of paintings of rocks and trees and stuff.

Bears Den 9 and Bears Den Study: Passage

 Bears Den 9

 oil on linen  12' X 16"

Why am I fascinated with these rock formations, probably part of the rubble left behind when the Appalachian ridge pushed thousands of feet up tens of thousands of years ago? Every aspect of these rocks speaks to the passage of time - the posture or gesture they have fallen to; the broken and worn surfaces; the way trees have managed to grow in amongst them. The form of the large rocks define space and weight against the background of the forest's chaos - and I enjoy the way color is suggested by the mineral make up of the boulders as well of the lichen and moss clinging to them. These rocks and this place of vistas and enclosed crevice, caves and flat-rock expanses, seems to have captured my complete attention. I suppose I'll just keep at it until I have exhausted my interest!

Bears Den Study: Passage

 oil on linen panel  9" x 12"

Someone asked me why I made these paintings, as no one they knew would be likely to buy a painting of rocks for their home - I guess intimating that selling the things would be the purpose for making them (they were well-meaning and probably concerned for my future). My stock answer has always been that 'I would be making these sorts of paintings whether anyone ever paid attention or ponied up and bought one or not'. That is true and while there have been shows where what I'd painted coincided with what folks wanted to buy - it has never been my motivation. Always it is the light and shadow, the form and space, the challenge of visual exploration, and the sheer joy of being alive at that moment in that place.

Bears Den Study, no. 7

Bears Den Study no. 7

 oil on panel  6"x 8"

Sometimes the painting dictates what you do - sounds weird but it is absolutely true. I pulled out a small panel, thinking I'd work fast and bold and try to get the essence of the place, the light, the space, in just a few well chosen strokes. Instead as I fell into the exploration, the intricacy of the forms slamming together and the power of weight and forms took over. Each mass had to find its place as it described the place of the form adjacent - it became a puzzle to solve carefully. I'll post the other studies over the next few days and look at how I arrived at each one.

August

 oil on panel  9" x 11"

Haven't posted in a while - I've been painting all along but time and some health issues and a general lack of anything much to say all conspired to keep me away from the blog. This little study from last summer seems to catch the heat and atmosphere of an August afternoon - but the process of making it had none of those things in mind - it was just immersing myself in the visual structure and color and letting the 'chips fall where they may' - that's the challenge and the joy.

December Frost

December Frost

  oil on panel  14" x 14"

It just seems these old trees have witnessed time stretching back for decades - they are evidence of energy and moisture and time accrued. The struggle to record the gesture and weight, to come to terms with the space and volume at times seem to be a kind of homage to the trees and the time they represent. This brings to mind a quote of Willem de Kooning's, "It seems that a lot of artists, when they get older, they feel their own miracle in nature, a feeling of being on the other side of nature."

October Day

  oil on canvas  28" x 44"

It has been a couple of weeks since my last post - we've been to two weddings and a funeral and of course Thanksgiving with family and so on.  Plus, I have been framing work for two up coming exhibits - I'll have three paintings in the December / Holiday show at ArtSquare in Leesburg, Virginia. Everyone is invited to opening night, next Friday, December 9th - starting at 6:30 in the evening. Also in Leesburg,  I'll have 15 paintings at the Loudoun County Courthouse beginning January 10th through the end of February. Lots of new things there - which I am now wrestling into frames!  So very busy and glad of it, I guess - I'm looking forward to it all slowing down soon and a more regular pattern of painting and posting and writing about it all.

Early October Day

Early October Day

  oil on panel  12" x 18"

A little, non-descript corner of a field that seemed to me to hold all of Autumn within it's space. I'm always drawn to the ragged edges of the land - the places not filled in and neglected - if one looks closely enough the old fence lines and depressions left from old buildings' foundations can still be found. 

View of the Potomac From Murray Hill

View of the Potomac From Murray Hill

 oil on panel  12" x 16"

A new perspective of the river from high on a bluff - I'm more used to floating in my rowboat down there among these islands. This view was afforded my workshop group a couple of Saturdays ago by the nice people at Murray Hill, a beautiful estate right on the edge of Leesburg, Virginia. We had the run of the place for two glorious days and it was very special. 

Fall Day, Near Leesburg

Fall Day, Near Leesburg

  oil on panel  9" x 16"

A simple visual poem attempting to capture a day full of movement and color and change. The best paintings, it seems to me, are the ones in which the painter suspends any drive to control or order the world and commits to simply struggling to grab hold of a small part of the chaos. Willem deKooning was an independant and contentious fellow, never trusting artist-types who espoused an abstract / transcendant theory of what paintings should look like. Instead he wrote, 'the best we can hope for is to bring some order to ourselves'. He never could say where his work would go until he entered the process - the commitment and faith in the process without regard to finished product. Such work looks to me to carry an intensity and freshness that is intrinsic and everlasting. 

Lake Afternoon

Lake Afternoon 

  oil on canvas  9" x 12"

  Another one made standing on the dock, trying to breath the space and light right on to the canvas - without worrying about what things are. Sound crazy? Well once one detaches oneself from judgement, hesitation, fear of failure or imitation - and one embraces the moment and the place as revealed in value, color, and shape - the impossible can happen and the spirit of that place appears as if by magic. Hope this one takes you to the lake on a late afternoon in September, on a magical day.

A Road In Maine

A Road In Maine

  oil on canvas  28" x 38"

When I look at this one now, I wish I could go back and stand there on such a day. Maybe that is the large part of making a painting - one tries to compress a process measured in hours down to a precious moment, even as every molecule in the field of vision constantly changes. Maybe also, getting lost in the process of painting for a few hours allows one to forget the passage of time that will not allow that moment to happen again. A painter must always move forward while fighting to hold on to something already gone. I had an opportunity to look at some of Edward Hopper's paintings a couple of weeks ago and I think that is the impact of his work - the essence of an awareness of irretrievable time past.