My latest solo exhibition, "Through You," will open at the Ivy Tech John Waldron Arts Center on Friday, April 5th, 5-8pm.
Sunday, March 31, 2019
Saturday, March 30, 2019
Closing Reception for "Very American"
Hope to see you tomorrow afternoon at Oakland City University.
Tuesday, March 26, 2019
Nearsightedness
Several weeks ago, a friend and fellow art teacher asked me to write something for her students. The prompt was, "Why paint?"
I paint because I find the act of painting artful. I wouldn't go so far to call myself an artist, as I hate acknowledging the necessary pretentiousness in pursuing the lofty goal of art-making, but I'm certainly a picture painter. Despite my efforts to create collections of work, sell my pictures, and other indulgences in "artist-type" behavior, I really only care to paint because I find the process very satisfying. Deciding to be a painter—in light of smartphones, other snowballing technological advancements, and a culture less attuned to flat pictures on the wall—is a fairly ridiculous endeavor if a means to an end. But if painting pictures is the desired outcome, rather than whatever may result from finished paintings, I feel myself closer to creating art, albeit ephemeral as performance. Each exhibition of my work is less of an opportunity for me to show off my merit as a painter and more or an opportunity to tell stories about where painting has taken me.
On days like today, when I don't feel like picking up a brush, I try to remember some sort of credo like the one above—the words I'd tell someone who assumes I wake up every morning solely to smear color on canvas. But most days, I just wake up to fall asleep a few hours later, overwhelmed by the looming burden of potential unrealized...a pile of aspirations obligating me to feel guilty for any stint of unproductiveness. Guilt and self-loathing are a pretty large part of my daily routine. Everyday is a recurring discovery of greatness forever out of grasp with an inability to turn away from the endeavor—a baby bird with a broken wing, just pushed from the nest, moments away from recognizing defeat while simply trying to do what a bird is supposed to do.
But I'm being dramatic. I could paint twenty pictures today as easily as I could paint none...either way, none of this matters. Despite the malcontent character I've created for myself with a typically pathetic tone, I'm entirely satisfied knowing all of the pursuits I hold dearest to be inconsequential to the rest of the world. And while I'll always scoff at the idea of the "tortured artist," I'd rather be tormented by a blank canvas than most anything else. I've never been so happy being so miserable.
It's a sunny Tuesday morning, Spring is in the air, and I hope you're happy too.
I paint because I find the act of painting artful. I wouldn't go so far to call myself an artist, as I hate acknowledging the necessary pretentiousness in pursuing the lofty goal of art-making, but I'm certainly a picture painter. Despite my efforts to create collections of work, sell my pictures, and other indulgences in "artist-type" behavior, I really only care to paint because I find the process very satisfying. Deciding to be a painter—in light of smartphones, other snowballing technological advancements, and a culture less attuned to flat pictures on the wall—is a fairly ridiculous endeavor if a means to an end. But if painting pictures is the desired outcome, rather than whatever may result from finished paintings, I feel myself closer to creating art, albeit ephemeral as performance. Each exhibition of my work is less of an opportunity for me to show off my merit as a painter and more or an opportunity to tell stories about where painting has taken me.
On days like today, when I don't feel like picking up a brush, I try to remember some sort of credo like the one above—the words I'd tell someone who assumes I wake up every morning solely to smear color on canvas. But most days, I just wake up to fall asleep a few hours later, overwhelmed by the looming burden of potential unrealized...a pile of aspirations obligating me to feel guilty for any stint of unproductiveness. Guilt and self-loathing are a pretty large part of my daily routine. Everyday is a recurring discovery of greatness forever out of grasp with an inability to turn away from the endeavor—a baby bird with a broken wing, just pushed from the nest, moments away from recognizing defeat while simply trying to do what a bird is supposed to do.
But I'm being dramatic. I could paint twenty pictures today as easily as I could paint none...either way, none of this matters. Despite the malcontent character I've created for myself with a typically pathetic tone, I'm entirely satisfied knowing all of the pursuits I hold dearest to be inconsequential to the rest of the world. And while I'll always scoff at the idea of the "tortured artist," I'd rather be tormented by a blank canvas than most anything else. I've never been so happy being so miserable.
It's a sunny Tuesday morning, Spring is in the air, and I hope you're happy too.
Sunday, March 17, 2019
Thursday, March 14, 2019
Friday, March 8, 2019
"Johnny B. Goode" by Marty McFly
Simple Twist of Fate
oil on canvas
28" x 56"
If you're an art lover, this is a great painting for an entomologist. If you're an entomologist, this is a great painting for a dendrologist. If you're a dendrologist, you should "make like a tree and get out of here!" If you're a dendrologist and didn't get that joke, you should watch Back to the Future for a second time. If you never watched Back to the Future a first time, you need to find a flux capacitor and revisit the time in your life when it all went wrong.
You can see a bunch of bugs stuck in the tree painting above at the Brown County Art Guild.
"Roads? Where we're going we don't need roads."
-Emmet Lathrop Brown, Ph.D.
Wednesday, March 6, 2019
Distracted Drawing
Bus Driver
graphite
8" x 8"
The Brown County Art Guild will be featuring a special exhibit of portraits and figures this month and next. The little sketch above is one of three people pictures I chose to contribute.
Ever been a large man in the front seat of a school bus? It's uncomfortable. On field trips with my students, I typically doodle until motion sickness becomes a more powerful distraction from tiny seat cramps than the drawings I create in my lap while bouncing around like an extra-large egg in a medium egg carton.
Sit down! Shut up! I'll turn this thing around!
Tuesday, March 5, 2019
This is my pre-blog-post-title.
Moab
oil on canvas
12" x 12"
Speaking of rock walls, have you seen Free Solo yet? Holy moly.
I'll be playing at the Bluebird tonight with Matixando, just in case you're near Bloomington and don't like working on Wednesdays.
Monday, March 4, 2019
If you book them, they will come...
Carmel
oil on canvas
12" x 12"
Here's another painting you can find at the Brown County Art Guild in Nashville, Indiana. Carmel-by-the-Sea is a trip...maybe the only place where you can see someone "bump park" a Ferrari between a Prius and a Microbus to buy a walking taco from a shirtless man on a bicycle.
In other news, I'm putting on a rock concert. Last night, a weird, naked Indian took me to Jim Morrison...we're getting all of the details ironed out. Stay tuned.
Sunday, March 3, 2019
The Guild
Kiva Beach
oil on canvas
24" x 24"
I delivered twelve paintings to the Brown County Art Guild today. They're some of my favorite "pretty landscape pictures" I created last fall. Because I know some of you who follow along have been anxiously awaiting pictures that are a little less depressing and/or a little less mundane than my typical fare, I've decided to offer you a smorgasbord of prettiness at the Guild. I take that back...it's only seven pretty pictures. Hell, now that I think about it, they're really not that pretty either. I don't do pretty well. I'm pretty bad at pretty. The other five pictures are my typical adequate depictions of non-pretty. Ugly pictures of ugly subjects...that's my jam, everything else is a fluke.
What I'm saying is this...go to the Brown County Art Guild in Nashville, Indiana. Love my pictures, hate my pictures, buy my pictures, throw rocks at my pictures...I don't care. But go to Nashville, go to The Guild, go to the soap shop and smell the soap, go to the candy shop and smell the licorice, consider having your name tooled into something made of leather, and buy a slab of fudge for God's sake! Or don't...whatever, I don't care.
This screen is hurting your eyes, isn't it? Maybe take a break, eh? Ever try a yo-yo?
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