We’ll Always Have Camden

At my show, I surprised my wife with a painting that, judging by her response, she likes very much. It is of the Schooner Olad on which we sailed — at sunset — on our tenth anniversary in the summer of 2008. It is, among other things, a reminder of a serene moment in what can often be a daunting life, to say the least. The following afternoon, a customer asked me the secret to being happily married for eleven years. Without thinking even for a second, I told her it was finding the right person from the start — and it’s true. All of the hard work and tips solicited from those who have done it can’t compensate for that.

The Sparrow in Your Heart

Carry on with the Countdown…

The ubiquitous art imitates life/life imitates art debate has given way to the more localized art interrupts life/life interrupts art — for me, at least. I suppose like most people who call themselves artists (and I don’t call myself an artist often), I’d love to devote vast amounts of time to drawing and painting. I’d love to immerse myself in the process for days on end, crawling out of my cluttered studio a crumpled, unbathed, paint-covered mess, feeling as though I’d created something huge or at least part of something huge — only to emerge in search of some more life to imitate (or however that goes), and then repeat. In that regard I even envied Henry Darger but that’s not my lot. That’s not my life. I am pulled in other directions, often at once and blessed — truly blessed — with a life to interrupt. So I’m left to find a balance among interests, passions, responsibilities, and obligations. I work on paintings in fits and starts as life allows or when I just have to step away and take a moment.

This show is going to be the distillation of captured moments, stolen hours. Nothing rushed, nothing thrown together. I can’t even say it will be lacking but I know I had hoped to start working larger, varying style and media a little more. I had hoped to carry out some common threads a little longer through a more prolific showing. I will do all of that next time, perhaps for a summer show. Instead it will be a sampling of the images most pressing to me — stripped down to the visual equivalent of the few things you’d say if you only had a moment and maybe that’s a good thing.