Elysium

Sometimes it is absolutely necessary to remove yourself from the mainstream of society in order to think.

Elysian life?
Elysium- Greek place where the good rest when they die.

Path of Travel

The path of travel for these paintings is not easy, but I truly do not have a choice.

There is no way to possibly trace the crazy changes I make in these paintings.
The painting is the evidence.

I would like to represent the myths as I know them.

Greek myths no longer have any meaning more than a curiosity. Behind the Myth is what I'm interested in. There is something real, and the form must be integrated.

Content trickles in very slowly.

The Greeks

Reading the classic Greeks, from the viewpoint of many different writers writing about the same thing. It gives me a picture of a larger reality that is facinating. The more versions of the same story that I read, the fuller this vision becomes.

The "News"

Painting becomes very interesting when you start getting what William DeKooning calls "the news". This is what is beyond painting. It trickles in by its own strange ways. It happens when something that was there from a previous will or hope by me, starts to behave with something else that was put down for some other reason and resonates in ways that are beyond my will. Something larger that myself.

Painting speaks on its own voluptuous accord.

The question I usually ask myself after finishing a successful painting is- How did get to this point?

Musicality

Rothko wanted to raise painting to the level of poetry and music. The idea of musicality of a painting is interesting. I am facinated when some desperate mark or color can add to this superior structure beyond what I could conceive.

Sustain

Coming back and looking at the painting for me is an intellectual activity. Just like reading the classics. It is very important to understand reading of painting. This is a secret that will sustain you. It will help you grow and track your development.

3D Color Tree

The way that colors are revealed on my imagination is very fast and has no room for reason. In order to follow in this accord, I must be very organized on my palette. My colors are organized in respect to both hue angle and value. The only problem is that you need 3 dimensions to do this because the CIECAM planes are in 360 degrees and black white and gray are all in the middle. The question is, Where to put the greens?, and how not to mix up dark yellows oranges and reds?

In order to do this I have to continually reorganize my palette. Color must be seen and used associatively, it cannot be reasoned.

Content will always reveal itself in the most unpredictable ways. The best is not to think about it and use your instincts. I think about how Rothko conveys his tragic view without any image. I also think about how Titian digs deep into the mysterious content of his late paintings and what is being said by both is essentially the same. Content is not the subject matter solely. It is what is really being said, what is at the heart of being communicated.

Getting color to speak in ways that cannot be communicated by any other means is what painting is all about.

Atmosphere of Tragedy

Somehow, I have to get the painting to speak the whole tragedy.

Not through the depiction of images, but the whole of everything. The mood, the atmosphere, the way every color speaks in its own mysterious way to indicate the very specific and general at the same time.

It's always unpredictable how the results come about. Of course that's why you continue to do it.

Dusk

With honest devotion to the painting I think that you will stumble on the real from time to time. This realness will be inside the poetry.

I like to draw at dusk. This is when I see better.

If I walk as I draw, it's like the whole juice gets flowing and I just might make the marks that will point towards something larger than myself.

Associative Color

Since color is associative, it's important to continually mix and see the color combinations before you on the pallet. With my temperament, I have to keep my palette clean.

I love it when you exactly what to do without thinking.
You're in trouble when you do what you think you should do.
It's best to do what you must.

Excess in the true way. Art does not know compromise. There is a structure to tap into.
It only comes when you loose your fear.

Beyond Conception

Sometimes I think that the overall harmony of the painting comes to its own by sheer desperation. I look at some of the elements of my painting and could not even imagine how I could conceive the idea of that.

This leads me to my ideas of conceptual painting. The idea of executing a concept solely, seems like the most backwards way of working a painting that I can think of (in retrospect, this is such a different way of working that I just don't seem to comprehend it).

The beauty of painting is the continual reinvention of the language. The "idea" comes through the form. Most ideas of artists are pretty stupid. But it doesn't matter. Artists put themselves out on a limb, and we love the poetry of their stupid ideas.

Levels

Like poetry, painting needs to be viewed many times over and over.
It is enjoyed slowly on many levels.

I think it is better to read a few books thoroughly and truly enjoy them, that to skim through many.

Crisis

Bringing a painting up to the point of how I behave in a crisis always pushes the painting farther. And in a better and unpredictable way that can bring wonder.

If I attempt at flattering the viewer, I always get a unexpected negative response.

Form and Content

As an artist, all you can do is to feed yourself intellectually and when you paint, follow the form as it pleases you. The content will find its way in.

The more you have developed culturally and intellectually, the more you can enjoy looking for that little content that squeezed out.

Ovid

"My inspiration carries me on to new things" Ovid

In nova fert amimus

The Palette

It is important for me to paint with my guts as well as to be good with color.

Sometimes the most exciting color harmony comes from just using your guts.

Setting up the palette in such a way that I can see more of the color combinations, will help when all goes instinctual.

Scene

The idea of a painting being described as a scene interests me. A scene is like a part of something larger, as if in a movie of a play. I would like to think of it as a place where a human drama is performed.

There has to be a tension between the depiction of what is happening and the sense of environment that sets the tone for all of this. Painting, like poetry can indicate something very particular by merely suggesting. As far as the figuration of these paintings, I feel as if I am focusing on setting the scene and then watching the drama unfold.

The form should be read first like music, whereby the content slowly comes to light.

More than anything, I love when the painting begins to speak with its own voice, in its own world.

Just one tiny inflection of tone or hue can completely change the painting as a whole. This is one of the most exciting to witness in the poetry of painting.

The way pieces of color are arranged in relation to each other is what creates the illusion of light. These harmonies are what sustains us until the content is distilled and can begin to speak.

TItle of Paintings

I look forward to what my paintings will bring forth in the future. I trust that there is no limit to the complexities of nature. That I may stop looking so hard and let these things come forth.

As the seasons change and the sun goes down, it is easier to see / imagine the depth of the space, even between my eyes and the ground I walk on.

The secret laws of painting are somewhere between what you thought you saw and what moves you. This is something very hard to pinpoint.

How to title your paintings? What is it that you want to convey in the literal sense to attach to your painting? Should I describe the noun or the or place? Subject of what is being depicted? Should I label what is happening in the painting, or what it looks like may be happening?

If I am standing outside near a tree and say this is a painting of that, and point toward the tree, or if hold my arms out and say a painting of this. The second would encompass what is all around you. Is there a way to make this distinction in the selection of a title.

Scales and Modes

My goal is to encompass through painting, all that I wish to say and experience. I know that sounds far fetched, but I do believe that it is entirely possible. There has to be a way that all parts of you can seep into the painting under the guise of form.

Exercising color paths, just as a musician will play scales and modes until, they begin to slip into the expression in form, without even knowing when they broke from simply doing the scale. This one way that I start.

I will occasionally walk around in the early evening with sketchbook and jot down fleeting impressions and guesses of what I think I see. This exercise can grow into sketches, which looked at a later date reveal unrelated hints to activate my imagination. While painting, these "drawings" are really more like a series of keys that help to unlock a larger whole.

This inspiration can come from just about anywhere. A movie, a walk, or the way the sunlight bounces of a porcelain dish. Closing my eyes, I will see even more. The trick is to be able to focus, and say something clear, without being literate.

Artifact

The painting itself is really an artifact of a visual language that arranges and rearranges. When the composition is complete it stays as such until it physically begins to deteriorate.

Just as a song is written, the painter must begin with that glimpse, something you thought you heard (saw). Something heard next to something different. Something seen-(imagined) touching down the composition to start.

A.P. Ryder

Charles Dekay on A.P. Ryder

"His pictures glow with an inner radiance like some minerals, or like the ocean under certain states of cloud, mist, wind. Some have the depth, richness and luster of enamels of the great period. He is particularly moved by the lapis lazuli of a clear night sky and love to introduce it with or without the moon. The yellow phase of the moon when she is near the horizon, and also occasionally when she is on the zenith- in Indian summer, or when fine smoke or dust is distributed through the air, find him always responsive to the mystery and poetic charms of twilight and deeper night touch him as they do poets. Ryder attempts to reproduce their actuality in colors."

I love the way Ryder clarifies the focus of his pictures. Even though there were others like him, he seems to pop up out of nowhere with no interest in any present art movement. He is clearly anchored in the tradition of great artists of the past, yet is in the present 19th century world.

I like this idea of inner light, glow and such. I think that is where painting is truly independent of any of the literate arts. The arrangements of colors-transparent, deep, opaque, thin washes- free dispersion of pigment in a variety of viscosities of vehicle.

Composing

Painters are very much composers, if you put it into musical terms. The painter doesn't just play someone else's music He always is composing, while playing.

The thing that I do not understand is why a 21st century composer would never consider not having had played and studied music prior to the 21st century, let alone the 20th. In the case of contemporary painters, most have done a master study here and there, I fail to see many developing a full understand of the language as the musician does. The ones that study techniques from the past usually never make the transition to make it there own. This is where the difference between musician and composer comes into play. The musician has to be able to play from all periods and enjoys this. The composer like the artist, is expected to have a full understanding of and is always a contemporary artist.

When I think of someone like Gershwin sitting down at the piano, I am reasonably sure that had the ability to experiment with the full understanding of harmony, melody, texture and rhythm. When I here recordings of him playing variations on his own works, I have no doubt that he has complete control over the music as well as the expression of his innermost feelings.

Studying color harmony and paint/pigment handling along with reading literature and science, helps for the better the appreciation of the medium.

20th Century / Dark Tones

With all the development in the past century in painting, I don't see how someone in this day can paint without incorporating or exploring fully this past era.

There is a deep hidden connection in the dark tones of color. They speak to each other in ways that are beyond our comprehension.

Celestial Compensation

"Painting-- presents him, and provides him in revelation of its treasures a celestial compensation of both artist and viewer."

Eugene Delacroix

Form and Color

The relationship between color and form is something that evades me. At dusk, I look at the local colors and see how they can kind of run into each other. Each thing is made up of its own material with its own molecular structure. The way the light interacts with this structure and reflects is how our perception is of it. Our perception also compensates for the change in light so we don't become confused when light changes.

As a painter, the representation of something should be at the discretion of the artist, and utilized to the most effective means to say what must be said.

I can't imagine a writer getting bogged down in the description to the point where it no longer says what his intentions are. He describes enough to touch off the imagination provided by the knowledge of the reader. The painter must also use this play on visual language to get exactly what he wants. This takes a lot of practice and the study of color and the properties of paint. Handling paint is not talked about by artists too much, but this is what there primarily doing all the time. There are so many ways to apply paint. I love having full control over how thick, thin, transparent or opaque the application. Knowing whether to fling and splash the paint on without touching the canvas, or scooching a grainy wash in with my finger.