Cross-Country

The first time I saw a mountain, I painted a very poor picture of it.  And I did the same with waves on the beach and rocks in the desert.  For the past dozen years or so, I’ve done a lot of driving sans destination, eager to leave home in search of new experiences along the roadside so I can record them as best I know how.  Painting has been the validator of each of these spontaneous trips cross-country and justification of my emulated artist persona.  I have convinced myself that the act of painting, the decision to put marks on a canvas rather than putting a photograph on the internet, is more artful than the artifact.  The finished product is only proof of the process, never the end goal.  But the leftovers…these inadequate reproductions of each great adventure…have always kept my trajectories round trips.  

So, when the last corner of dashboard is covered in wet paint, and the backseat is full of colored rectangles and turpentine smells, I turn the car around and bring my pictures back to Indiana.  So I can show them to you, I guess?  So I can convince myself I could be anywhere, even though I never stay gone for long.  I leave and I paint and I come home again.  

 

 

Fools' Day Fun

 

Click Here to Register at BloomingtonArts.org

Foot in the Yard

There’s a fox four feet away from me, behind chain-link lost in the night. 

There’s a car we both hear on a bridge far away with a man inside at the wheel. 

There’s a coyote as well, between us and the car, a shape pacing a path on the hill…

Lit by the moon that casts a shadow on me from a fox that sits four feet away.

And there’s a faint dot that passes over us all, tied to earth by weight of the world.

And inside is a man like the one in the car on a bridge between us and the sky...

Looking down at the car the coyote and me with a fox that’s just four feet away.

There's a fence in-between like a wall I can't see, by beast and by God by mankind.

 Thanks, but no thanks.

For the birds or the apes or the dogs and the cats...

 The Bloomfield High School Art Club spent some time at the zoo last week, sketching animals and the like.  The students' drawings will be for sale, with all of the proceeds going to the Greene County Humane Society.  They let me tag along with them...my contributions are below.  Each is matted and ready to frame.  Contact me HERE to purchase or to inquire about the student work.

Person-ality

acrylic on paper

8" x 10"

sold

Hominidae

acrylic on paper

8" x 10"

sold

Rocky

ink and gouache on paper

6" x 8"

sold