Something Different

So a lot has changed since my last post.  I won't go into detail except to say that one of the biggest changes is that my wonderful wife has retired and that we went on a 4000 mile camping excursion while driving through about seven states!  What an adventure; complete with beautiful scenery, truck trouble and one evening fraught with a huge swarm of mosquitos that even troubled our dogs.

After that trip I decided to step out and start experimenting with new creations.  I made cedar walking sticks, cheesy signs ( All my friends have paws, etc...) and even started working toward my old indulgence of knife making.  What can I say, I live in the Ozarks and "We Love Knives".

So because I am so new at it I decided that instead of creating knives from scratch that I would repurpose old tools and such to see how I liked it before throwing down a ton of cash on an anvil and other such tools.  I ventured out to our local swap meet looking for old broken pieces or things that looked like blades that I could slap a handle on and sharpen on my belt sanders. 

I found that old grass shears as well as pruning shears have very high quality steel blades ready made for my needs.  Then I found this: (see picture) minus the handle.  This was a very old machete with a 14 inch blade and a handle that was broken into four pieces and held on with electrical tape.  It was a perfect find especially at three bucks...

I took it home and knocked some of the rust off the blade with a wire wheel then I spied an old piece of driftwood that I pick up off the bank of the Mississippi River several years ago.  It was the perfect looking handle to turn the old machete into something new and exciting.  Well, in my mind anyway, my wife had doubts...  The wood is very hard and seasoned so it should hold up well with use.  I fitted the blade into the wood and pinned it in place with three brass pins.  Behold, a 22" "Pirate Cutlass" with a 14 inch, high carbon, spring steel blade.  Insert cliché pirate noise and...  done.

"Fade to Black 2" - 24" x 24" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow core door panel - $250.00

Here is another little 24 x 24 inch painting created for my mobile art business.  As often happens in art this piece involved a happy accident.  I was using an empty gesso bucket to create a black circle around the large "planetoid" (??) at the bottom left.  I had a sheet of wax paper with black paint on it and was moving the lip of the bucket around in the paint so I could transfer it.  When I was done I looked at the wax paper and really liked the effect that I saw so I duplicated it in the top half of the painting.  The result becomes the story behind the painting.

Who knows how long the earth has been here, some say 6,000 years and others 4.5 billion.  What we do know according to the Bible is that one day the earth will be destroyed by fire. 

 2Pe 3:10 But the day of the Lord will come as a thief in the night; in the which the heavens shall pass away with a great noise, and the elements shall melt with fervent heat, the earth also and the works that are therein shall be burned up.

This painting then is a before and after; the current earth below and the blackened cinder that it will become before crumbling away once again to the dust that formed it.

"Heavens Gate" - 24" x 24" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow core door panel - $250.00

Here we have a wet on wet painting, a technique I like to use to diffuse colors and achieve an organic effect.  It is hard to see the effect in the photo and I really had trouble with the white areas so know that they are not as bright in the actual painting...  Of all creation outer space is perhaps the most mysterious.  On earth we see the minutia of life, from a blade of grass to a lady bug and the mystery of life in general.  In space we see a vastness that is simply hard to comprehend and in those light years of time and space the mystery of God unfolds for me. 

"Isa 66:1 Thus saith the LORD, The heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool:"   

How great is our God?  The Psalmist says it the best:

 "Ps 95:3 For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods."

Amen and amen...

"Cold Front" - 24" x 24" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow core door panel - $250.00 (SOLD)

"Cold Front" is another in my series of smaller works geared to sell on the street and out of my mobile art gallery.  Well actually it is more like a mobile painting storage unit that I unload where ever people congregate and then begin the process of shameless self promotion as I sell the populace on the concept of buying local AMERICAN art and not a bunch of cheap knock offs from China.  I mean have you looked on EBAY lately?  Sure you can buy a 24 x 36 abstract oil painting on canvas for 49.99 but when you get it, it may not look at all like the photo and additionally all you get is the canvas which then has to be stretched over a frame.  Most people cannot do that themselves and end up paying Hobby Lobby to do it for them.  This generally costs as much as the painting and if you want a gallery wrapped look then your painting goes from 24 x 36 to 21 x 33.  If you choose to save the entire painting then you are left with a piece of art with either a white border around the sides, or you could paint it black or frame it which costs even more money....

I know everyone cannot dish out $150 for a painting in these hard economic times (which actually are not that hard...) so I do accept offers when I sell my work on the street or when you call or email me from this site!  If you love a painting then work with the artist.  Trust me, we want you to have the painting and many of us will reduce the price to accommodate your budget.

Stepping down from my soap box...  This painting was inspired by some crazy weather patterns we had this spring.  One day it was 96 and the next day it was 68.  You could actually feel the air cooling down while the deck was still hot under your feet.  I thought to myself:  "What would that look like visually?" and here is where we ended up, letting warm and cool colors do all of the work!

"Nuclear Family" (SOLD) - 24" x 36" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow core door panel - $350.00

So...  Little did I know that the title of this painting would end up being controversial.  I saw a really old magazine from the 50's and it had this picture of a family ducking and covering in their white picket fence - leave it to beaver house with a mushroom cloud in the background; and then I painted this little piece and called it "Nuclear Family".  Next thing I know someone is telling me that it is not politically correct and all that...  Really?  I was just having some fun with a play on words.  (Hence the mushroom cloud)  Relax and enjoy the painting already, I promise there is not an ounce of hatred or judgment in it.  Scouts honor, no groups of people or animals were harmed in the painting of this painting... 

"Quandary" - 24" x 30" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow core door panel - $225.00

SOLD!!  I was out on the street last Friday evening trying to sell some paintings and this monochromatic piece was among those works that I was displaying.  I must have had five or six people ask me "what does that say, are those letters?"  

Honestly, I was not being intentionally cryptic when I painted the white line.  It is just what happened after I picked up the squeeze bottle of white paint and started moving it over the painting.  Later I did notice however that it seemed to resemble some semblance of a word, maybe...  I also did not intend for the black and grey space to resemble an aardvark but it sort of does doesn't it?  Quite the "quandary" isn't it? 

"Sequence" - 24"x24"x1.5" - Acrylic on repurposed hollow core door panel - $125.00 SOLD

Yes, I admit that it is strange, but the inspiration for this painting came from mosquito larvae in a bucket of water.  It has been reported that the similarity between human and chimp DNA is between 95-98.5%.  Well, before you start thinking that maybe evolution is true, you should know that scientist also claim a 60% similarity between human DNA and that of a fruit fly or mosquito!  All DNA is made up in combinations of sequences of threes and these are called triplets.  Which of course brings us back to the magic number three...  Everything that has ever been made was created by Jesus Christ and this is a true statement if you choose to believe your Bible.  So just because there are basic similarities between my DNA and that of a monkey or fruit fly does not necessarily mean that I used to be a monkey or a fruit fly.  There is also a 75% similarity between the DNA of humans and nematode worms.  So what is it then, did I come from a monkey or a worm?  Or perhaps the Bible IS true and we were all created independantly by God.

"The Space Between Us" - 30" x 34" x 1.5" - Acrylic on hollow door panel - $425.00 SOLD

There is a certain amount of repetition in the universe.   Spacial relationships are governed by unseen forces such as gravity and electromagnitism.  The earth rotates around the sun at a distance of about 93 million miles.  If the earth was moving faster its orbit would be even further out from the suns surface.  This painting however, is not about planetary objects, but speaks to the spaces between sub-atomic particles.  If a single hydrogen atom were enlarged to the size of the earth, with its nucleus of a single proton in the center of the earth; then the electron orbiting the nucleus would be located somewhere out in the earths atmosphere!  I have read that if all of the matter in the universe were compacted to the point to where there was no longer any free space between the individual particles; then the resulting object, if shaped into a cube and placed in the center of our sun, would reach out to where its sides would be located at the orbit of Mars.  This means that we are surrounded by and made up of, a LOT of empty space!  Did you know that a neutron star has been compressed so tightly by gravity that its core is a giant diamond?  Twinkle twinkle little star, how I wonder what you are.  Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky...

Stratospheric Anomoly - 24" x 31" x 1.5" - Arcylic on hollow door panel - $325.00 SOLD

There is not a lot to say about this painting other than it was an experiment with color juxtipostions and using a wet on wet technique to bring to mind cloud formations.  I also use a paint removal process to expose the red beneath the greens...  It ended up looking like a view of a weird purple lake from an airplane at about 30,000 feet!   I will say, that this piece is much richer looking in person that it looks in this photo.  I will keep experimenting...  You never know what might happen next.

Into the Shallows - 9 x 36 x 1.5 - Acrylic on Hollow Door Panel - $165

After fishing all day and catching almost nothing we headed back to the boat ramp about 10 pm...  There was a bright yellow spotlight hitting the water and as we pulled the boat up the ramp I went over to make one last effort before heading home.  As I approched the shore I started seeing dark shapes moving in the water and soon realized that they were walleye searching the shallows near the shoreline for shad.  I stayed there for almost two hours watching the fish; sometimes close enought to the shore that I could have scooped them out with a dip net!  (not allowed by law...) Some of them were nearly three feet long and they paid absolutely no attention to me at all.  I ended up catching only 2 (by accident I am sure) but getting to see them so close up was a real treat for this nature lover.  About a week later I started an automatic or expressive painting and this is what emerged.  As the painting was only 9 inches tall and fish shapes were emerging; I thought back to that night and the fish in shallow water...

Beneath the Thermocline - 34 x 36 x 1.5 - Acrylic on hollow door panel - $525

This last summer I started fishing again for the first time in about twelve years and I had a blast.  It all started with the white bass in the spring and I fished a lot in the rivers heading into nearby Stockton lake at that time.  In early Summer we would fish the lake and stay near the shoreline and around cover.  By mid June it started getting harder and harder to find the fish as they started going deeper in search of cooler water.  One day I was fishing near a bridge in a really great boat (not mine, i do not have a boat) with a state of the art fish finder. I noticed that for the first 20 feet or so of water, that there were barely any fish at all but below the 20 foot mark they were just thick.  I didn't catch many fish that day but it did inspired this painting so all ended well!

"Precept Upon Precept" - 38.5" x 72" - Acrylic (Diptych) - 1200.00 US

There is a passage in Isaiah that reads as follows:  "Isa 28:10 For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little:"   This verse speaks to the way we learn.  Knowledge is not given all at once, but instead we learn slowly and progressively.  We build on previous successes and we also learn from our mistakes.  We start with a foundation and then build upon it.  This is the given process whether growing in worldly knowledge or in spiritual wisdom.  We lay a foundation then start adding layers.  This painting is a representation of that process.  Layer upon layer of paint, building to the finished painting.  You will notice that I kept the color pallet to a minimum which is always difficult for me!  I wanted the structure to speak more than the color in this piece but that yellow still has quite a voice...  The numbers and symbols represent the contribution mathematics and language have had upon our ability to grow intelectually.  I believe they represent the "blocks" with which all of our learning experiences are built with.  Will we build wisely?  If we allow God to become our foundation and build upon Him, then the answer is yes...

"Guardians of Peace" 40" x 10' 8" Acrylic on four wooden door panels

I created this piece specifically for show at the Driskill Gallery on the SBU campus in Bolivar, MO.  The painting (all 11 feet of it...) is now hanging and the reception for this opening is tonight!  I intially started this piece with the idea that it would grow over time by adding new panels to the ends or even above or below to create a scrabble board type effect.  I still like that concept but maybe not for this particular painting as it sort of took on a life of its own during the creative process and ended up turning into something I had not anticipated but have decided to live with!  The title all started with the dove (yes, that is a dove...) in the second panel from the left.  Then as figures started to emerge I saw them as watchers or guardians; maybe even as angels checking out whats happening down here and occasionally protecting us from ourselves and helping us salvage what little "peace" we have left.  This is my largest painting to date and I look forward to creating even larger work in the future.

"Lust of the Flesh" - Acrylic on door panel - 36" x 40" x 1.5" - 525.00 US

This painting represents a break through for me in that I have taken a style originally meant to vaguely represent geological rock formations and allowed it to evolve or mutate into something new and different. While this painting still has defined "layers", they now each represent something other than just abstracted rock strata. If you look at the first layer on the left you will see the shape of a female figure. The blue layer in the middle contains a gawking face and the greenish orange layer to the right contains a figure turning away as to avoid the entire situation. In addition the blue face contains several red/magenta circles meant to represent lustful thoughts. An additional face (looking but not looking) in the man turning away, shows that a part of him wants to look back even as he averts his gaze.

"Circular Logic" - Acrylic on door panel - 35" x 30" x 1.5" - 425.00 - SOLD

I continued with the center band in this painting, however, I utilized the concept of a fault line from my previous painting, by displacing portions of the band as if tectonic plates had shifted.  I incorporated circles instead of lines in this painting as an attempt to further the evolution of a concept.  I added directional lines on the circles which lead to a new type of signature for this series.  You will also note that there is a distinguishable face in the lower left as I began to pull form from the organic.  The changes in this painting led directly to a bolder use of definable content in my next painting called "Lust of the Flesh". 

In my discussion during the last few posts, I keep mentioning the phrase "evolution of a painting".  I am trying to let my work grow and expand into something deeper and more personal.  As an attempt to do this I am forcing myself to make changes in each painting that will force it to become something at least slightly different than the last.  Not just in composition and color but also a painting that stretches my own boundaries of creativity.  I want to create more....  I want to know what is really inside of me.

"Fault Line" - Acrylic on door panel - 40" x 32" x 1.5" - 480.00 US

To be honest, I approached this painting very openly hoping to find some magic and see this series of paintings begin to evolve.  Once again I wanted to use bright and vivid colors with even a little more saturation this time.  I chose to balance the bright colors with the whites, greys and black in the center of the painting.  While I like this painting it does not represent the title as much as I wish it did.  I hung on to this thought and incorperated it into the next painting called "Circular Logic".  A face emerges in one of the lower black lines of this painting and although it was accidental, I liked it and added a face into Circular logic as well.  I didn't know it yet but the evoloution had begun!!

"Earth Borne" - Acrylic on door panel - 40" x 28" x 1.5" - 425.00 US

There was a gallery showing recently that was a benefit for a local organization that collects food for the hungry.  The theme was "Til All Are Fed".  My challenge was to create a piece for this exhibit that would represent this concept and yet fit into my current series of paintings which abstractly represents earths geological formations.  I chose to depict earths fertility through soil, a root system and then ultimately the fruit of this growth process.  Whether the soil provides grain, vegetables, fruit or even grass; it not only provides food for us, but for all of the earths creatures as well.  Many people have found this painting to be disturbing and hard to interpret.  Once I explain the concept however they seem to find it a little easier to pallet.  The colors at the top imply growth and fertility, but are they representative as well?  I will give you a hint, think extreme close up...

"What Lies Beneath" - 30" x 30" x 1.5" - Acrylic - 375.00 US - SOLD

So I have discovered yet another paint application tool.  This time it is a (drum roll please) PIZZA CUTTER!  What a great tool for making long straight (or curved) skinny lines...  I also used a piece of coat hanger to make lines in this painting as well.  This painting started out with the concept of an iceburg hence the blue colors.  It took a sharp turn somewhere and I ended up exploring the juxtiposition between organic forms and geometric design.  One of the greatest thrills in abstract painting is watching the painting evolve and take on a life of its own.  Look for more paintings similar to this one, with even more vibrant colors, to be posted soon.

String Theory - 12" x 16" (on repurposed canvas) - Acrylic - 75.00 - SOLD

This is a very small painting for me but I like the results.  The canvas is stretched around a 1.5 in deep frame (gallery wrap) and the painting continues around all sides.  Quantum mechanics, vibrating lines and multiple dimensions all play into String Theory.  String Theory is a contender for the "Theory of Everything" and that my friend is a big bite to swallow, for to understand everything means to understand God Himself.  Not to worry however, "for though now we see through a glass, darkly; one day we shall see him face to face".  Then we can sit down and have him explain it all in detail!

"Aquifer #2" - 40" x 28" x 1.5" - Acrylic - 435.00 US

Number two in the "geological" painting series.  This one utilized much bolder colors than Aquifer #1 and I have added bluish glass beads to the water layer for a texture effect and to pick up the light better.  This piece reminds me of southwest desert landscapes, especially those of Arizona and New Mexico.  This may be the most "orderly" abstract painting that I have ever created.  Some of the rocks are very realistic and yet the abstraction comes forth as I attempt to portray my perception of what a raging underground river might actually look like if we could see it.