Don't Be Afraid to Miss Me (oil on canvas, 2020)

"Ideas come spontaneously and the discipline required to evaluate and put them to use tends to be the real work.” - Stanley Kubrick

To a visitor, my studio probably looks like a chaotic, cluttered mess. There is work all over the place - taped to every wall, stacked on tables, chairs, and windowsills, stuffed into storage compartments, in piles leaning up against the wall, and scattered about on the floor. There are also art materials - pencils, charcoal, pastels, paints, and various papers - close at hand from anywhere in the room, and at least half a dozen empty coffe mugs. Although it may seem unorganized, especially if you are of the personality type that likes order, for me it is a fertile ground for creativity and for generating ideas. Occasionally, I will host a group of students for a studio visit, and will have to clean up the space (usually an exorbitant amount of work!). Afterwards, I find it difficult to get back into my normal creative frame of mind.

The ideas for my images are never the product of thinking. They arise from working. In between the times when I am actively engaged in a large painting, my work generally consists of me just picking up some art materials and starting to draw. Sometimes I take my materials outside to draw. Other times I simply work in the studio. I find the process of exploration and searching through the fog for an image to be an essential part of my practice. It requires a great deal of focus because I have to always be aware of how the image is developing and listen to my instincts for clues as to which direction to take the image in.

The process isn't entirely instinctual, though. There is a lot of problem solving going on, albeit mostly at a subconscious level. These are visual problems that usually have to do with getting all of the components of the image to work together in a unified way, to create a sense of space that is cohesive within the context of the image, and creating an overall color harmony that conveys whatever emotional content I am trying to communicate through the image. Because every part of the painting affects every other one, and every time I add (or take away) anything, even the smallest bit of paint, the entire image changes. This can easily become a complex act of visual juggling and it requires fluency in the language of visual form and mastery of one's tools, materials, and techniques to be able to pull it off. It's a bit easier these days than it was years ago but it's still a challenge and can sometimes feel like I'm engaged in a battle to the death. My studio is lettered with the carnage of many of the battles that I have lost.

Sometimes Noise Is Beautiful (oil on canvas, 2020)

The older I get, the more I realize the importance of trusting my instincts. They have never been wrong, but there have been times when I chose to ignore them because I didn't like what they were telling me, only to invariably end up regretting it.

I struggled with this painting for a few days until I got to the point where I just wanted it to be done so that I could move on to the next one. This is a small canvas (16" x 12") and I had an idea for a large painting that I was eager to begin working on. I decided that this was finished and headed off to bed, but as I walked back to the house from my studio, I felt this nagging feeling that the painting could be better. I tried to ignore it and went to bed. When I returned to the studio the following day, the feeling was still there. I really wanted to move on to the bigger canvas, but I chose instead to trust my gut and return to this one. I laid the canvas on the table and scraped most of the paint off and began the work of trying to bring the image back in a way that I would be truly happy with. 

In the end, I am glad that I persevered. The ghost of the original painting that was left on the canvas after I scraped the paint off added a layer of spatial density that is very effective and those red-violets, which I really like, were not in the early incarnation of the painting.

In any creative endeavor, one must have patience. In spite of our hard work, some ideas will only come to fruition in their own time and an artist must allow for this. 

Intentionally Lost (oil on canvas, 2019)

(Private Collection)

I grew up in an enclosed neighborhood that was surrounded by woodland – the remains of what were once an apple orchard and a large farm. Throughout this vast track of uninhabited land ran a network of divers paths, some well-worn and wide enough to drive a tractor through and others so narrow that one would regularly have to push the undergrowth aside in order to pass. Some of these paths could be accessed by advancing beyond the terminus of any of several dead-end streets in the neighborhood whilst others, less conspicuous, could be found behind various houses, through a break in one of the rock walls that surrounded the neighborhood and cut through much of the woods. I can remember, as far back as the age of four, wandering these paths and venturing into the woods to explore, – something that I continued to do until I left my childhood home in early adulthood. In the ensuing years, I have continued to take long walks or runs into uncharted territory wherever I lived or travelled. My current location in northern Maine, where I am surrounded by tens of thousands of acres of uninhabited land, has proven to be ideal for me. The allure has always been the prospect of expanding my boundaries and confronting the unknown.

Traversing beyond our boundaries into unfamiliar territory is a necessary part of personal growth and is sacrosanct in any creative endeavor. As I have continued to evolve as an artist, I have found it increasingly more appealing to enter into the creation of an image without much of a plan and to allow the image to unfold as part of the process. Of course, this requires a solid foundation in both technique and the language of visual form in order to navigate my way through the process. I wouldn’t head out for a ten-mile hike without water and proper shoes. But I still want to be challenged by the art-making process and I want to be surprised as the image comes to fruition.

In many ways, the act of painting and drawing feels the same to me as when I wandered around the paths surrounding my neighborhood as a child as probably why I am so drawn to landscape motifs in my work.