Closer Than You Think (2016, oil on canvas)

I have been fascinated with bare trees lately and have spent a lot of time over the past few months making detailed pencil drawings such trees in the area around my home. The empty branches have such great movement in them, with lines twisting and turning and wrapping around one another, sometimes like a frozen dance. At first glance, bare trees all seem remarkably similar, but as I study and draw each one, I find myself becoming closely acquainted with the individual personality of each tree. Trees have taken on such life in my mind, that lately I have found myself walking in the woods and feeling like I'm surrounded by people rather than leafless trees. Like us, each has its stories – some good, some bad, some long and complicated, some straight and to the point. The branches hold the stories of things that have happened to the tree, challenges it has faced, visitors that it has hosted, storms that it has weathered. These stories and secrets are laid bare during the bleak winter months, ripe for the picking to anyone willing to take the time. Soon, all of the trees round here will be covered with leaves. The branches will be invisible, but somehow I know that when I see them, I will be keenly aware of what lies beneath the greenery.

Lonely Here Without You (oil on canvas, 2016)

I began painting exclusively with a knife about eight years ago. The reason for this was that I felt like I couldn't make a stroke in oil paint with a brush that didn't look like something that I had seen before. Making paintings that no one else could possibly have made was important to me, so I endeavored to develop my own personal system of mark making. I essentially use the same knife for everything. It's not even a painting knife; it's a palette knife – made for mixing colors on the palette – but it's what I feel most comfortable working with. I also paint with my canvas lying fat on a table, rather than propped up vertically on an easel, which enables me to turn the canvas (or walk around the table) and easily paint from any side of the canvas. One of the things that appeals to me about this method is that I am constantly forced to find ways to articulate what I'm trying to say without being able able to resort to copying the tried-and-true methods of other painters. Making art offers us an opportunity to celebrate our uniqueness, and finding a personal way of painting has always been a top priority for me. Suggesting a tree with this method is always a challenge, but I'm quite pleased with the way this came out.

This Too Shall Pass

Here is another one (see two posts down) that left the studio over a year ago, thinking it was done, only to return and be almost completely painted over. You can see the original, which I was actually quite pleased with when I did it, here.

However, as I continually grow and develop as an artist, I see things differently. (As an aside, I saw an interview with the painter Brice Marden once and he said something which I thought was very apropos about how each time we look at a painting the experience is different because, even though the painting hasn't changed, we have.)

This painting was at the Kada Gallery in Erie, PA for a year. I brought it back to my studio in November of last year and found that I wasn't as satisfied with it as I had thought I was. I went back and looked at the series of pastel drawings that I had done before commencing work on the original painting and found that one of the qualities that I liked about the drawings was the value contrast between the building and the sky, something that was missing from the painting. So I began to rework the painting by darkening the value of the building and adding, consequently, more color to it. This, however, caused the building to push forward and compete with the foreground so I added more value contrast and saturated greens and oranges to the foreground in order to make it advance in front of the building. I also reworked the sky, making it bluer at the top and greener closer to the horizon. Having to repaint the negative spaces between the tree branched necessitated repainting a lot of the trees in order to maintain the softer edges of wet paint meeting wet paint.

In the end, I think it's a much better painting and I'm glad that it returned to me so I could finish it.

Memories of Things I Never Had(oil on canvas, 2016)

I have learned that "winter" paintings aren't very popular. People don't like snow and generally don't like to be reminded of it. But I live in northern Maine, where we have seven months of winter and the inspiration for my images comes, in part, from observing the world around me, so it's difficult to not have some paintings that suggest a snow-covered landscape. Snow is white, though, and white contains all the colors of the visual spectrum, so it's fertile ground when it comes to explorations in color, especially if one is willing to use one's imagination.

I'd much rather think about color than snow, anyway.

After All This Time

I am often asked "How do you know when a painting is finished?".

My answer: "When I sell it, because then I can't work on it any more."

This was one of those paintings that took years to finish, as happens sometimes. It began in the autumn of 2011 as a series of pastel drawings of one of my favorite subjects, the old McBride homestead on the Framingham Road here in Littleton (which, sadly, is due to be razed some time this spring). I did an oil painting shortly thereafter, which ended up hanging in two shows over the following 6 months. However, once I got the painting back to my studio I was forced to realize that I wasn't completely happy with it. The house was much bigger and there were three trees in the foreground. I ended up pulling the canvas off the stretchers and stretching a new canvas and starting again with this composition – pushing the house farther back and eliminating one of the trees in the foreground. The resulting painting was better than the original, but I knew instinctively that it wasn't quite finished. I left it leaning against the wall in my studio (for two and a half years!), often contemplating it and trying to figure out what was wrong with it. Finally, I realized that the biggest problem with it was that the road in the foreground had too much orange in it – the result of me thinking (which is never a good idea when you're trying to make art!) that the orange would give a sense of the light on the road. In reality, the orange in the road was fighting with the orange in the grass, so I made the grey in the road cooler, with less orange and even increased the amount of orange in the grass, which in turn caused the sky to appear even more blue - an unexpected bonus hat caused the touches of orange in the trees and chimney to pop out.

I think it's a good idea to not force oneself to "finish" a painting, but to allow it to come to fruition in its own time. The paintings want to be finished, and if we're patient, diligent and observant, they will eventually let us know what they need – and maybe even teach us some important lessons at the same time.

With You There Beside Me(oil on canvas, 2015)

(Private Collection)
A couple of buildings from the old Schools farm, just north of my house. In fact, I can see the back of that big barn from the window over my kitchen sink. This has been the subject of several drawings and paintings over the years. This is a variation on a composition from six years ago but with a very different color scheme.

The elements that have drawn me to landscape as a subject matter are the deep space, the light and the atmosphere. Other common subjects – figures, interiors, still life, etc. – usually deal with relatively shallow space, with controlled lighting and not much atmosphere. But the landscape seems to extend away from us forever – or at least as far as we can see, and I relish any opportunity to try and create the illusion of that deep space on the flat surface of a canvas or sheet of paper. And once the surface of the painting has been pushed back far away from the viewer, there opens up an enormous vacuum that can potentially be filled with light and atmosphere. Easier said than done sometimes, and it's something that I find a lot of my students have difficulty with. Even I have difficulty with it sometimes.

A Perfect Day in August (oil on canvas, 2015)

Another "green" painting. (see previous post.)This is a painting that took me over a year to complete. It began as a series of pastel drawings done in August of last year (2014). On one particular day, I had finished a pastel drawing and reached into my backpack for the canister of "Wet Ones" hand wipes that I always have on hand to clean up with, only to realize that it was empty! I drove to the nearest store, getting green pigment all over the steering wheel of my car and went in to buy some more wipes. Of course, I ran into someone I know! There I was with green hands (and probably green smudges on my face)!

I began working on the painting in the autumn. I got to a place where I didn't know where to go with it, in October, although I knew it wasn't compete yet. I went back to it occasionally throughout the winter and following spring, but never to my satisfaction. I made some changes during this past summer and was happy enough to hang it in a show that I had in September, but when I got it back from the show, I realized that I still wasn't completely content with it. Then, in November, on the eve of a trip out to my gallery in Erie, PA to deliver new work, I decided to give it a major re-working – repainting the sky, the path and most of the greens in the foreground. One of the major problems was that the path was too segregated from the grass surrounding it. I put some green into the path and some orange into the grass and it works much better now.

I've made five trips to Erie in the past two years, never once without a wet painting in the car, and I wasn't about to make an exception!

Growing Old Together (oil on canvas, 2015)

Of all the primary and secondary colors, I've found that none has more variations than the color Green. There are a seemingly infinite number of mixtures from light to dark, warm to cool, intense to dull, that can all be classified as "greens". Yellow-greens, blue-greens, intense grass greens, grey-greens, brownish greens, moss greens, etc.. I have also found that green is a difficult color to work with. Getting the many permutations of green to get along with one another in a picture can be a challenge. Although the landscape here in the summer can be filled with intense greens, those same greens can appear artificial and unnatural when translated into oil paint on canvas. But I enjoy the challenge of working with green, as trying as it can be. It is an essential color for conveying the summer light of the rural, agricultural landscape where I live.

This is the old Currier house. I have painted this subject before, from farther away, at different times of the year and even from the other side. This summer, whilst cycling by it, I was attracted to the shape of the shadow on the side of the house, which only occurs for a few minutes each day. It took me a few tries to get the timing right, but I managed to get out there a few times at precisely the right moment and make some graphite drawings, which gave birth to a series of color studies in pastel and, eventually, this painting.

Several people, upon first seeing this painting, have asked me, "Where is that?" which always puzzles me because it's such an abstraction and not at all an illustration of a particular place. Perhaps (and I like to think that this is the case) when they see it, it makes them think of a place that they want to go, rather than a place that they recognize. In fact, one friend, when first seeing the painting, didn't ask where it was but, instead said, "I want to live in that house."

Awash in the Patina of Nostalgia(oil on canvas, 2015)

I shall forget you presently, my dear
So make the most of this, your little day,
Your little month, your little half a year
Ere I forget, or die, or move away,
And we are done forever; by and by
I shall forget you, as I said, but now,
If you entreat me with your loveliest lie
I will protest you with my favorite vow.
I would indeed that love were longer-lived,
And vows were not so brittle as they are,
But so it is, and nature has contrived
To struggle on without a break thus far,—
Whether or not we find what we are seeking
Is idle, biologically speaking.

– Edna St. Vincent Millay, 1892 - 1950

All That Remains (oil on canvas, 2015)

Nothing lasts forever.

I have found, although I never consciously intended it, that the ephemeral nature of all things is a recurring theme in my work. Time marches on — minute by minute, second by second — and everything changes. I spend a lot of time outdoors, walking around with my sketchbook, running and cycling, and I'm constantly struck by how much the landscape around me, even in my little microcosm in northern Maine, changes year after year. Old buildings sink into the ground or collapse whilst new ones appear, seemingly to take their place. Fields become forests and forests become fields. New trees rise up as seedlings from the ground on to which old trees have fallen. Broken, pock-marked roads get repaved only to become broken and pock-marked once again. Objects that were once pristine become weathered, worn, faded and cracked and eventually decay.

But there's an inherent beauty in the decay, one that I find immensely appealing, especially when I see man-made objects that have become part of the landscape, the steel and painted wood consumed by rust and mold, illuminated by the setting sun, which itself serves as a constant reminder that time is always moving forward. Perhaps that's one of the things I love about painting: it's a way to preserve, at least for a while, that which is fleeting.

Remember When You Were Young?(oil on canvas, 2015)

My mother grew up on an onion farm in upstate New York. My uncle and my cousin, both named John Musaccio like my late grandfather, still grow onions there. I have extremely fond memories of visiting there when I was a boy and still enjoy spending time there whenever I can (which isn't very often since I now live about 700 miles from there!) When I was young, most of my grandfather's onion fields were on the Warners Road – a two-mile long, perfectly straight line made of dirt and gravel, with drainage ditches running along both sides. The ditches were traversed via narrow "bridges" which were each composed of, essentially, a culvert covered with dirt. Punctuating the seemingly endless (especially to a young boy) row of onion fields were various dilapidated structures – storage sheds for tractors, plows and other farm equipment, as well as shacks which served as temporary housing for migrant workers during the harvest season.

This image is the latest of several that I have done over the past seven or eight years based on an old photo that I took of one such structure on the Warners Road. I don't like to work from photographs (and I never actually looked at the photo whilst working on the painting, referring instead to some of the many drawings of this subject that hang on my studio walls) but I find myself repeatedly drawn to the geometry of this image. The combination of rectangles, triangles, squares, circles and ovals – juxtaposed with the amorphous shapes in the landscape – are fertile ground for a painter.

I don't envy the work of farmers, but I'm grateful for those that choose farming as a profession (or, perhaps, like artists, the profession chooses them...) and I often identify with them. So much of my work involves germinating the seeds of ideas to fruition with a combination of hard work, skill, patience, knowledge combined with a dependency on the weather and hands that are never, ever really clean.

The Space Between Us (oil on canvas, 2015)

(Private Collection)
I have found that a good many people believe that the beauty (or lack there of) in a work of art lies in the choice of subject matter. When people first learn that I am an artist, they often ask me what subjects I paint, rather than how I paint or what my work is about. I have had people come into my studio and look at my paintings and ask me why there are no animals in my pictures or if I have any lighthouses.

I believe, however, that the true beauty of any artwork comes from the form of the work - the seemingly inevitable (one of my favorite words!) arrangement of lines, shapes, values, colors and textures - scribbles and marks made with human hands, that somehow miraculously call to mind the familiar, whilst simultaneously showing us (if we take the time to look) something we’ve never seen before.

Best Kept Secrets (oil on canvas, 2015)

I work a lot.

I am often asked how long a painting took me to make – usually a difficult question to answer. My process involves a lot exploration, experimentation, improvisation, risk-taking and wandering down untrodden paths or into the wilderness where there is no path. I want to make images that I've never seen before, which makes it virtually impossible to simply sit down and "make a painting" from start to finish. A great deal of the time that I spend in my studio is devoted to drawing, much of which is very loose and gestural, drawing from observation, memory and my subconscious, whilst I keep a sharp eye out for pleasant surprises that emerge from the work. This happens not nearly as often as I'd like and much of the "work" that I do ends up in the trash bin. But the work is, nonetheless, an important part of my overall process.

This painting of the old McBride house, which has been the subject for numerous drawings and paintings over the past few years, began late one night, over three years ago, as a very small, experimental color sketch. I had covered a piece of paper with blue pastel and then smudged it with my fingers, sprayed it with fixative and then dew the house from memory in various blues. The drawing itself had a lot of problems, but I found the color scheme interesting and thought about developing it into something. But, as sometimes happens, the drawing got misplaced and I moved on to other things. Over the past few years, the drawing periodically surfaced, from the depths of a pile of papers or from underneath a table and I would always find it interesting and think about working it up into an image, but to no avail. Until earlier this year.

There were many more drawings, as I worked out the composition and color scheme, before I embarked on this painting, which is markedly different from the original sketch that was the impetus for the final image, which didn't have the shed or any trace of reds or red-violets in it. I enjoy allowing the images to come to fruition in there own time, as was the case with this one and many others. I like to be surprised and I like thinking that out in my studio right now are more small, rough, late-night sketches that may one day, like a butterfly emerging from a chrysalis, become wonderful paintings.

Everything is Going to Be Alright(2015, oil on canvas)

For the past couple of years, the focus of my work has been the use color harmony as a means of expression. For each image that I create, I endeavor to create a unique combination of colors that work together to convey the content of the image. I try to imagine the colors for each image as a cast of characters in a story - each one playing a specific role in the overall drama, whilst simultaneously making an important contribution to the cast as a whole. My process involves mixing all of the colors for each painting before I actually begin to paint. This allows me freedom to focus at first on the color relationships for the image. Once the colors are mixed, I begin to paint, but often during the painting process I will modify colors, add new ones and decide that certain colors that I have pre-mixed have no place in the painting after all.

This image was based on a motif that I explored several years ago - the back side of an empty house on the Littleton/Houlton town line. I sold the original painting a long time ago and never referred to it for this painting, but I did have some of my original pencil drawings that I had done on location at the subject in the spring of 2010. This ended up being a painting about yellow - my goal being to create a visual representation of the sense of warmth and comfort that can come from reflecting on pleasant memories from the past as a means of alleviating anxiety about the future.

As Long As It Takes (oil on canvas, 2015)

(Private Collection)
This is another variation on the subject in the previous post, this time with a green sky, a pink driveway and slightly different composition. I spend a lot of time working out the compositions of paintings, sometimes doing dozens of small thumbnail drawings with myriad variations in the placement of shapes within the frame of the image. I try to avoid compositional clichés and I like there to be a little bit of tension created by an imbalance, like a syncopation in a piece of music that creates a feeling that everything could fall apart at any second. Life is like that sometimes. All the time, really.

Until We Meet Again (oil on canvas, 2015)

(Private Collection)
I did some drawings and a painting of this barn back in the autumn of 2009, shortly before the barn was razed. The structure was on a corner of the Front Ridge Road here in Littleton, a spot that commands spectacular views to the north toward Mars Hill and to the east into New Brunswick. My focus lately has been on using color as a means of conveying emotional content as well as a way of creating interesting (and, hopefully, beautiful) color harmonies that I haven't seen before. The idea is to divorce the colors from the objective colors of the observed world and to find ways to make them work together within the context of the specific image in a way that is harmonious, while simultaneously imbuing the image with personal, subjective content. Easier said than done, I can assure you, but this is one of two paintings that I did early in the year, based on the memory of this barn that had no wall on the eastern side.

Perfectly Imperfect (oil on canvas, 2014)

(Private Collection)
Beauty is in the eye of the beholder. Or so they say. I'm not sure that I agree with that, though. It's true that what's beautiful to some might not be beautiful to others. We live in culture where we're constantly being told what is beautiful and what isn't (mostly by people that are trying to sell us something). Many people manicure their lawns and their bodies, exerting a tremendous amount of energy and resources to be able to appear beautiful according to an ever-changing, arbitrary standard. But there's another kind of beauty that appeals to me, and that's the beauty that's inherent in things when they are in their natural state, as they were meant to be. When we look at things without expectations, we can often see beauty and perfection in what may at first appear to be chaos and ugliness. It's the idiosyncrasies and flaws that make each and every person and thing unique and in that uniqueness lies true beauty.

Chicken Cathedral (oil on canvas, 2014)

(Private Collection)
I worked for years as a commercial artist in the fields of graphic design and illustration, using my skill set to visually communicate other people's ideas. But when I made the move to Maine ten years ago to focus full-time on my art, I decided to paint just for myself. Consequently, I don't do a lot of commission work and I have turned down a fair few projects, regardless of how lucrative they may have been. However, I have had the good fortune on a few occasions to have been approached by some exceptionally open-minded patrons who, in the hopes of obtaining a work of art with some personal meaning, have invited me to explore their property and look for subject matter that would interest me, while allowing me complete creative freedom as well as the liberty to work at my own pace. This image was the fruit of such a project.

I visited this farm many times from late spring until early October last year, making numerous pastel drawings - some that I was very pleased with and others (as is often the case) that just didn't work. Ultimately, I found myself repeatedly drawn to this interestingly-shaped building - dubbed the "Chicken Cathedral" because of the hand-carved wooden rooster atop the cupola - and the various old oil tanks that surrounded it, their oval shapes providing the perfect foil to the angular nature of the architecture, whilst reminding us of the utilitarian nature of the building itself and its place on the farm. I confess, I had a wee bit of trepidation that the client might be disappointed that I had included the oil tanks (You'd be surprised at some of the stories I've heard from artist friends who regularly do commission work!) but in the end my fears were unfounded and they were quite pleased with the final image.

There Are No Coincidences (oil on canvas, 2014)

(Private Collection)
I made this for a dear friend who's been a constant source of inspiration and spiritual guidance. He loves trees and the title is something that he reminds me is true on a regular basis - especially at those times when I need to hear it the most.

Happily Ever After (oil on canvas, 2014)

(Private Collection)
I've never been interested in symbolism in my art. I can appreciate artists who use it, and some of my favorite artists use symbolism to wonderful end, but I've always been more interested in the purely formal aspects of painting and drawing (i.e. line, shape, color, texture, etc.) and using those to convey emotions. Although my work tends to be much more abstract than naturalistic, at heart I am a realist. I just believe that images can communicate much deeper truths once we transcend literal description. I tend to choose ordinary, mundane subjects for my paintings and I then try to imbue them with qualities that will touch the viewer on an emotional level by means of how I paint them and the choices that I make with regards to color, value, paint application, composition, etc..

But this is a painting that's rife with symbolism....

Light In August (oil on canvas, 2014)

Fred and Inez's sheep farm, which I've drawn and painted more times than I can count. When I return to subjects that I've drawn or painted before, I am always struck by how they've changed. A structure is missing or a new one has been added. Trees have grown or fallen. The colors have faded or, perhaps with a new coat of paint, have become more intense. But, more importantly, when I return to a familiar subject and begin work, I realize how I've changed. The things I see or don't see, the decisions I make with regard to color, composition, value, texture, etc. reveal how I have (hopefully) grown as an artist. The subject is familiar, but the image, which is more a manifestation of myself than of the subject matter, is wholly new.

As They Were Meant to Be (oil on canvas, 2014)

The thing I like about Edward Hopper is his use of geometry. The way he uses shapes, with themes and variations, and the way he creates so many interesting shapes by using the edge of the picture plane. One of my favorite Hopper paintings is called "Nighthawks" and I love it because it's filled with triangles. There are dozens of triangles and every time I look at that painting, I discover another one that I hadn't seen before. Hopper was a brilliant designer on a purely two-dimensional level and much more of an abstract artist than I think most people realize. When I was learning how to paint, I copied some Edward Hoppers and I soon found myself plagued with the comparison - to the point that I stopped looking at his work and made a conscious effort to avoid his influence. But, obviously, the influence is still there. The paint application and the color in this image are certainly, uniquely me, but the geometry reminds of Hopper as does, I suppose, the subject. Our heroes will always influence our work in some way, even if it's only through the subconscious. What matters most is that we take what we need from the masters and find a way to make it our own.

Open Doors (oil on canvas, 2014)

This was a painting from a few years ago - a small, plain air study that I'd done on a Monday in October. It hadn't aged well and as time has gone by, I've always had the nagging feeling that it could be better. I recently pulled it down from the wall in my gallery and put it on the painting table in the studio. I began by changing the color of the sky, making it a lighter value and less saturated with blue. Of course, this meant that the color of the roof had to change and then the trees in the distance and then the barn doors and then the foreground, etc., etc... Soon enough, I'd repainted almost the entire thing. I like it much better now.

The Stories We Don't Tell (oil on canvas, 2014)

We all have our stories - the ones we tell the people in our lives. The ones that define us, the ones that everyone we know has heard at least once, the ones that we can't wait to introduce to new people that come into our lives. (I have a great one that involves my dad's new Volkswagen and a brown paper bag...) These stories define us. They've shaped us, made us who we are and they help us to show others who we are. But there are other stories. The ones we don't tell. Things that we've done or that have been done to us that we don't want anyone to know about. The stories that have scarred us or that reveal our dark side. The stories that we'll take to our graves.

The subjects in my paintings all have stories. Some of these stories I know because neighbors tell them to me. Some are just nostalgia. "Ah, yes, I remember when my grandfather used to pick potatoes there by hand." Some are filled with mystery. "You know, there were three suicides in that house..." And all of them have stories that I will never know. But I can use my imagination.

One day last summer, whilst returning from a bike ride to Bridgewater, which is about 15 miles north from me on US Route 1, I found this group of buildings up on the West Road in Monticello when I turned onto it and then headed back toward Route 1. I like these buildings. They've been fruitful so far and I'm sure they will yield many more images over the coming months and years.

This Too Shall Pass (oil on canvas, 2014)

All good things come to an end. And, fortunately, so do all bad things.

This image is based on the old Henderson barn on the Wiley Road that has been the subject of many, many paintings and drawings of mine over the years, although I had yet do make a successful image of the structure from this angle. I often run by this building and the idea for this painting came to me on the fourth of July whilst running in the rain. I don't enjoy running in the rain, but I do it anyway, for the feeling that I get when I return home, to a dry, warm house, knowing that I was able to push myself to get through a difficult, uncomfortable and unpleasant struggle - not unlike making a painting (although, I must say, running ten miles in the rain is a lot easier than making a painting!)

I like greys that have a bit of colour in them, especially purplish greys and green greys, and I wanted this painting to be about the relationship between those two types of colors. And, of course, there was no way that orange was going to let purple and green have all the fun without him so he crashed the party. I like the telephone pole because it reminds me of a cross.

Beautiful on the Outside (oil on canvas, 2014)

I never work from photographs, but I often do a lot of drawing prior to making an oil painting. I usually work in pastels when drawing, but sometimes I'll do black and white drawings in either charcoal or pencil and then work up a color painting in the studio. I like working this way because it frees me (or forces me) to make more subjective color choices, with the colors being chosen for their contribution to image rather than for their ability to "describe" the original subject, something that doesn't interest me at all.The sky was myriad shades of blue, from deep ultramarine to teal, in all of the preparatory studies that I did for this image, but when it came time to do the actual painting, this happened. I think it's important when working to allow the emerging image to direct the activity rather than imposing my preconceptions on the work. I want my paintings to surprise the viewer, to show them something that they've never seen before. I like to be surprised myself, as well.

The Best is Yet to Come (oil on canvas, 2014)

This was based on a pastel drawing that I did out on the Foxcroft Road a couple of years ago. I neglected to photograph the drawing before it was framed under glass, so there's no image of it here, but the original image was a square, with this composition being based on the top half of it only. I like the original drawing, but I think the reading of the various forms across the horizontal format is more effective. I tend to be of a dark, brooding nature but this is a painting full of optimism.

Five Months of Winter (oil on canvas, 2014)

I confess - I've been terrible at keeping up with my blog, but I have been working a lot since April. I was tied up during most of the summer with a bathroom remodeling project that turned into a nightmare, replete with horsehair plaster, asbestos, formaldehyde, rough-hewn-oddly-spaced wall supports, ungrounded wiring and a host of other interesting and exciting obstacles which I won't recount here. Add to that a plague of computer issues which lead to my Mac ultimately giving up the ghost, and the result is a sadly neglected blog.
This was painted in late March, at the tail end of the longest, coldest, snowiest winter I've ever lived through. I've been running by this menacing, anthropomorhic tree, with its flailing limbs, at the end of the Hamilton's driveway on the Framingham Road, for years and have always wanted to paint it. I like to think that the warm colors are creeping in and displacing the cold ones.

A Little Bit Older and a Little Bit Wiser(oil on canvas, 2014)

A student brought a notecard with a reproduction of a painting on it to class last week and wanted me to look at it and tell her why she found the image so appealing. It was a nice painting, of a New England farmhouse and some barns in winter, with a strong "rule of thirds" composition, painted in a loose, semi-impressionistic style with local colors (red barn, blue sky, etc.) accentuated with pretty, more subjective pastel colors. The drawing was accurate and the whole thing was executed with skill and aplomb. In the end, we concluded that all of these things contributed to the image's appeal, yet I found it ripe with clichés and devoid of originality. This lead to a discussion about "expectations". The image that we were discussing was clearly painted in such a way so as to meet the expectations of a broad-based buying public. No harm there - we all want to make a living. However, I believe that art has a responsibility to not meet our expectations, but to challenge them. Not to make us feel intelligent, but to make us question what we know and believe. To broaden our horizons - intellectually, emotionally and spiritually. To surprise us. To stir us up. To grab us by the shirt collar and say "Look here! Here's something you've never seen before!" I know. I know. Most people don't care about such things. They just want a painting that matches their sofa or reminds them of the place that they visited on vacation or reminds them of a famous artist who's work they can't afford. But there are people who care about experiencing something new. I know, because I'm one of them.

Anyway, this is the old Henderson potato house once again, this time in warm reds, yellows and oranges, with some purples and teals and greys thrown in....for anyone who cares.

Something to Look Forward To... (oil on canvas, 2014)

I was out riding my bike three years ago in the midst of the summer and as I went by this field right on the Canadian border, I saw this old potato truck parked way off in the distance near the woods and I really liked the way the late afternoon sun was hitting the barn. I was only about 4 miles from my house, the very early stage of what was meant to be a 30 mile ride, but when the muse beckons, one must heed her call. And so I did. I turned around and went home, changed into painting clothes, loaded my pastels into the car and headed back over to do a drawing. Unfortunately, the resulting drawing was lackluster at best. To be honest, I was disappointed that I'd given up what promised to be a much needed, stress-relieving bike ride in exchange for a mediocre drawing. So I hung the drawing on my studio wall and, over the ensuing weeks (months, really) I pondered it and tried to figure out what it lacked. I assumed it was the composition (The original drawing was much closer to a square in shape, with a lot more sky at the top and more foreground at the bottom.) so I cut some strips of paper and would tape them to the wall, covering up different sections of the drawing and changing the shape of the image, in the hopes that I would find a better composition. I cropped the bottom, the top, the left side, the right side but to no avail. Eventually I settled on this long horizontal, but the image still lacked something, so I left it there on the wall.

For three years.

Lately I've been focusing on using much more subjective color in my paintings - trying to find unique color harmonies specific to each painting and to whatever mood I'm trying to convey. In the original drawing, the sky was blue, the grass was green and the truck was red. I've been holed up in the studio this winter, thanks to single digit or sub-zero temperatures almost every day since early December, so one evening I began experimenting with some small-scale color studies based on this composition and came up with something similar to this which I thought was worth pursuing as a painting. So, in the end, I'm glad I skipped the bike ride that evening as I rather like this image. And when someone asks me how long it took me to paint this (It's remarkable how often I get asked that question) my answer will be "three years".

My initial impulse was to title it "Green Truck"... but I already used that title a long time ago.