Is this the best we can do as a nation? These are our choices?!? Let’s face it; both of these geriatric white guys are too old to be running for the highest office in the land. We need age and term limits for public office. And we need to rid ourselves of the absurdity of lifetime appointments; whether that is for judges, tenured professors at public universities, or (with the dominance of the two party system) politicians.

This is what dividing the power of our nation into only two opposing parties has brought us to. Abraham Lincoln said “a house divided cannot stand.” With their archaic primary systems and monopolies on our government; the Republicans and Democrats have turned us into two camps of “us against them.” When in reality, it is the haves versus the have nots.

I named this “Old and Crazy” as a play on “Good and Plenty.” That candy (which I love) is licorice flavored while this candy is oligarchy flavored. Both our political parties are beholden to the rich and the special interests groups. Both parties are bought and paid for by the Military Industrial Complex (which Eisenhower warned our nation against), AIPAC, and the Pharmaceutical and Energy Industries. Our politicians become wealthy as they live on the public dole under the guise of “public servants.” 

I’m not a democrat, but I always vote with them. But that is only because I care about women’s rights, civil rights, and the environment. But besides these “social” issues, the parties are identical and will continue to bleed our country dry as they fund foreign wars and world military domination, refuse to update our healthcare, transportation and energy systems, and allow unlimited dollars from the rich to pour into their pockets and campaigns.

Is this it? A candidate who tried to overthrow our government to replace it with something more limited and even more dominated by the rich? Or a candidate who should be shopping for retirement homes and, by staying in the race, is demonstrating that his judgement is just as flawed and dangerous as his opponent’s? 

Do we deserve better? Or has our complacency given us exactly what we deserve?

This is my second painting of Marilyn Monroe and the first painting I finished after my move to Spain.

As a child I used to have this reoccurring dream of swimming through dark choppy waters; trying to get to her to save her life. In my dream she lived in a house by the sea.

But I never got to her. I always awoke when the troubled waters became too fierce for my little body to take.

"Young Woman with a Water Pitcher" is one of my favorite paintings by Johannes Vermeer. This is my version of his masterpiece. 

I've no idea how Vermeer went about creating his works. Even though I have read a great deal about his colour theory and his manner of layering colours and his compositional arrangements, I have no way of knowing how he truly worked. Whether he used a camera obscura or not is irrelevant to me. He had a style and ability which goes beyond that of his peers, whether immediate or across the ages. I never attempt to mimic the style of any artist I interpret. My individual style is too strong and too ingrained within myself to deviate very far. But this painting is a good example of my current methods in oil where I create a series of glazes on top of an initial composition done in somewhat brighter tones. Then element by element I obliterate the underlying image with colour and then bring it back to my satisfaction.

I have changed the tablecloth to a stylized version of the Marvel's Avengers whose movies I love. Next to the water pitcher is a green glass pitcher my mother gave me which now sits in my kitchen. The mask on the table I found in a Halloween store and reminds me of a female version of my Guy Fawkes mask that I incorporated into another Vermeer painting. I affectionately call it Evey in honor of the film "V for Vendetta." The stained glass window is from my own home, made by my mom, which is a sidelight and compliment to my Clara Bow window. The picture hanging on the wall is a crayon resist I did quite a while ago. On the chair is slung my favorite blue coat. And if you look close at the finial on that chair you will see a tiny Harry Potter head.

Oil on Canvas 18" x 24" 

Shirley Temple was my first crush. Now I was a little boy then and had no idea that the girl on the television I believed to be my age was actually, in real life, forty years older than me. But it doesn’t really matter. In the early 1970’s life in my small town in Ohio seemed so simple and innocent and the Shirley Temple movies that seemed to be on almost every weekend appeared to embody those perceptions. And with only five channels to choose from it seemed to a small boy that little Miss Temple, and her movies, were very important indeed.

I have been wanting to do a photorealistic painting for quite some time. Most of the time I am drawing from sculptures or paintings which is far different from attempting to accurately record what exists in reality, or in photographs which capture a moment of it. And when I am using photographs of models to combine them within masterpieces of Western Art I am altering those images to integrate them into the style of each particular painting; successfully or not. For much of my life I looked upon photorealism as an unnecessary pursuit because why recreate what photographs already accomplish. But I now understand that photorealistic painting encompasses technical elements I do not fully possess and that the development of these skills will add to my ability to execute the visual realization of my creative endeavors.

Photorealism became prominent in the late 1960’s and early 70’s. This corresponds exactly with when I became aware of Shirley Temple in the first place, which makes her the perfect model for this.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas20” x 20”

My version of Gustave Klimt's painting "Judith." I have used Elizabeth Taylor as my subject and her hand rests upon a bust of Gaius Julius Caesar. On her collar is written the word Eros in ancient greek. The band across the top is an allusion to an old time movie theater curtain and the work is my reference to the 1963 motion picture Cleopatra in which she starred. My painting is hopefully a tribute to her wondrous beauty and talent.

Acrylic, Oil and Gold Leaf on canvas. 24"x48"

I was asleep in a bed in the second floor of a house and could see myself as I slumbered. My dreams became troubled and I sensed, I knew, that something nightmarish was about to walk in through the doorway of the room in which I slept. I struggled to wake and in my panic began running in place on my side thinking this might awaken me from this quickly shifting dream state. I awoke. I was actually running on my side in the bed. Relieved I arose, left the room, walked down the hall to the stairs and promptly tripped and tumbled violently down both flights of steps until I came to a terrible crash, facedown at the foot of the steps. And then it suddenly occurred to me, “Hey that didn’t hurt a bit.” And then at that moment I actually did wake up in bed on the second floor running in place on my side.

There is and there is not. Step by step and choice by choice I have walked down this path of life emphasizing or deemphasizing certain beliefs or what I believed to be certain realities. I shaped myself with every book I read or choose not to read, with every activity I embraced and every activity I shunned, and with every chance I took and with every chance I hesitated with and lost. I was knocked off a path I considered neither true nor good and gazed upon a person I no longer knew nor no longer cared about knowing. Why am I here? Why can I do what I can and not what I can’t? I am so very tired of the status quo and have decided upon not deciding. I left what was torturous in its boredom, abuse, and mundane obnoxiousness to explore whatever. What was is no more and I really don’t care what is next. 

I am down the rabbit hole.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 30” x 40”

2013

This is my cubist version of Superman fighting Shazam from the graphic novel "Kingdom Come." I have loved superheroes and fantasy works my entire life. Perhaps it was escapism from a humdrum life of midwestern marshmallowniss or a deep seated yearning to climb beyond what is possible but Superman, Batman, Star Trek and Wars, and Tolkien and Lewis filled that void for me. But I was never a true comic book fan. It was not until I saw the works of Alex Ross and I discovered the format of graphic novels that I truly began to appreciate the true art and beauty of the comic page. Ross illustrated "Kingdom Come" and it pains me to state it thus in the same vein that I am pained by the attempt to peg Norman Rockwell as simply an "illustrator" for doing covers of "Saturday Evening Posts."

Oil on Canvas 36" x 48"

I love John Singer Sargent and his teacher Carolus-Duran. I still consider the 19th century to be the pinnacle of painting and their direct method of oil painting is brilliant to behold. If Sargent realized he had erred in his process of modeling a figure he would scrape it down and begin again. 

Sargent's double portrait of Edouard and Marie-Louise Pailleron children is one of my favorites. I used their pose as the model for my portrait of a brother and sister. In Sargent's work the children sit upon an abstract rug or throw draped upon what is probably a studio bench. I, instead, used the cover of the British version of J.K. Rowling's book "Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire" created by Giles Greenfield. Since Sargent was an American who finally found artistic success in London I find it fitting to use a British book cover for a portrait of two American children.

Oil on Canvas 30" x 40"

It is the one art work that Leonardo kept with him his entire life and quite possibly hung in the room in which he died. Francesco del Giocondo commissioned the artist to paint a portrait of his wife Lisa Gherardini. The painting is sometimes referred to as La Gioconda in that respect. I somewhat suspect that the commission delivered to the Giocondo family is in truth the Mona Lisa of Isleworth and it is this portrait spoken of in the documentation regarding the painting and not the masterpiece that hangs in Paris. Raphael once drew a copy of Leonardo’s painting from memory and his drawing more resembles the Isleworth Mona Lisa both in likeness and background then it does the work hanging in the Louvre. I believe that Leonardo did not finish the Isleworth painting before delivery and that some other artist subsequently finished background elements and parts of the figure. The Mona Lisa that Leonardo kept with him and perhaps continuously retouched may actually be a self portrait or at least a portrait of the idealized woman in Leonardo’s mind.

It is the genius of his modeling and shading that breathes life into the world’s most famous painting. She truly is a person “made” from paint. It would be unsurprising to me if she suddenly moved and walked out of the frame of the picture. It is the first truly plastic art work for it’s ability to seem as real as anything else in our reality. She is a real as any of us, and in fame and longevity, more real.

My version has her seated in front of the riverfront in Cincinnati. I referenced the background from daguerreotypes of the city taken in 1856. 

Jan Van Eyck, in all likelihood, finished his oil on oak panel painting “The Arnolfini Portrait” or marriage or wedding in 1434. I’ve no idea how long it took him to paint this terribly wonderful and idiosyncratic double portrait but can only marvel at its execution and virtuosity. The work is a veritable tour de force of textural representation, geometric perspective, and complex iconography. It is one of my favorite paintings in all of western culture. 

Every work I create is at once both a tribute and an interpretation. Every work I do takes on a life of its own once started. The lines, curves, shades, and colors of the evolving piece form a singular vocabulary of existence which speaks to me and dictates the form and direction of its development. Once began it is this two dimensional surface of shape and color that orders my manipulations and whispers in my ear whenever I look away. A work of this complexity is more a re-orchestration of myself rather than a subject of my direction. I created this painting in the method that Jan Van Eyck is believed to have done. After the composition was planned and drawn I painted a grisaille or black and white version on the canvas. Each section was painted twice in black and white and I then began using thin layers of glaze on top of each area to tint and colour the work. Some areas have as few as four layers of paint while some areas required five to seven. This provided the richness of colour and a depth to the forms and shapes I wanted for this work. I also developed a specific methodology to capture the details required, while still keeping the amount of time involved somewhat realistic for my needs and my time left upon this world. This painting took me five months or roughly one thousand hours to create but I came to realize that I easily could of worked upon it for years. I paused before starting my version when the amount of work and detail that would ultimately be required flashed before my eyes.

The subject of my painting is of the wedding of Wally and Amanda. Wally loves Star Wars, Amanda loves Harry Potter. I love both. My iconography in this work is the union of these two themes. The finials in the bedroom have been replaced with droids. These are the droids you’re looking for. Upon the bedpost is a representation of Chewbacca and the Millennium Falcon while depicted on the rug are images of tie fighters, x wings, and death stars. The mirror’s frame is edged with Princess Leia heads and the glasses’ reflection reveals Rey and Han Solo to be the witnesses or officiators of the event. I have given the small dog the head of the Ewok from "Return of the Jedi." The dog steps upon a white feather to represent the actor Warwick Davis, who played the Ewok Wicket and other roles in Star Wars, but who also played Professor Filius Flitwick in the Harry Potter films. The edge of Wally’s sleeve is adorned with seven stars which represent the seven Star Wars films released to this point but seven stars also represent the seven books of Harry Potter. Upon Amanda’s sleeve are mobius snakes that represent the intertwining relationship of Harry and Tom Ridley but also represent the infinity sign and the never ending nature of love; a theme of this painting and, besides tolerance, the overriding theme of the Harry Potter novels by J.K. Rowling. On Amanda’s belt are the first letters of the first words of all seven of the Potter books. I have replaced the chandelier with the Time Turner from the “Prisoner of Azkaban” and the little broom hanging from the bed is inscribed with the word Nimbus. In the window sill is a remembrall and on the small table is a lily floating in a bowl of water. The lily and bowl symbolizes the story told to Harry by Professor Horace Slughorn about his gift from Harry’s mother and, for me, also symbolizes the love that Severus Snape felt for Lily too. Jan Van Eyck signed his work “Johannes de eyck fruit hic 1434” which is latin for Jan Van Eyck was here, 1434. There has been much debate about this signature with some speculating that this signature forms some sort of legal record for the marriage. I signed mine here as well as for it is such a strong elemental piece of the composition. From the script arises a design of “He” towards the bride and “Ha” towards the groom. You see, as I read the books, I was always secretly hoping that Harry and Hermione would somehow unite. It is Harry’s invisibility cloak that hangs behind the groom and I replaced the Bullseye design of the stained glass window from the original painting with the stylized initials R.B.W. which stands for Ronald Bilius Weasley. I always viewed Ron as being on the outside looking in with regards to the relationship between Hermione and Harry. This painting actually represents the fictional marriage of Harry Potter and Hermione Granger. My painting is a record of the union between the two most powerful wizards of their day. Forgive me Ron, Joanne, and Rupert.

The single lit candle represents me and all of my desires.

Oil on Canvas 30"x40"

I first saw Star Wars in the theater when I was eight years old. Being a little kid I loved the movie, of course, but it was especially Carrie Fisher who had the strongest impact on me. There were strong feminine role models all around me; in real life, in books, in music and in film. But for a child there seemed to be an absence of strong women role models in popular culture. I was too young to appreciate what Mary Tyler Moore represented portraying a single working woman on television and far too young to read and appreciate strong female characters in classic literature. Linda Carter was playing the super hero Wonder Woman on television but her costume made the production seem more about sexuality than about character. And then boom, here comes Princess Leia. Yeah, they named her princess but she was brash, brave, fierce, and funny. She was ballsy (and I don’t mean in the testicular way). As an eight year old she was the first fictionalized woman I had ever seen that I could truly relate to and admire. Carrie Fisher’s character was someone I could identify with and represented someone I would want as my friend or ally. And it wasn’t because she was cute or sexy. It was because of her strength and intelligence and humor and the nature of her character that attracted me and ultimately influenced the very way I regarded women. This fictional bad ass rebel helped to create a new paradigm for the representation of what a woman could be in my imagination, in my mind, and more importantly in my life. My favorite characters in print, film and in life are mainly strong women, whether it is Hermione Granger, Lisbeth Salander, Elizabeth Warren or Scout from “To Kill a Mockingbird.” It may sound strange but a space princess from 1977 made me a feminist.

Now it is forty years since the release of Star Wars and there is an abundance of strong women characters on television, in film, in books, and in our political world. But I have never before seen such disrespect or almost hatred towards women then what I am witnessing today. The dignity and the autonomy of women and their access to health care, contraception and their reproductive rights are continuously under attack in our country by the far right. During the recent health care debate Republican Senator Pat Roberts of Kansas said, "I wouldn't want to lose my mammograms," when asked wether he supports Essential Health Benefits. Foster Friess, the wealthy Republican mega donor behind the pro-Rick Santorum Super PAC, dismissed questions about his patron’s controversial views on women stating: “On this contraceptive thing, my Gosh it’s such [sic] inexpensive. You know, back in my days, they used Bayer aspirin for contraception. The gals put it between their knees, and it wasn’t that costly.” Texas Representative Jodie Laudenberg in 2013 said, “If a woman is raped… We have hospital emergency rooms. We have funded what’s called rape kits that will help the woman, basically clean her out. And then hopefully that will alleviate that.” Republican Senate candidate Richard Murdock told rape victims who might want an abortion, “I struggled with it myself for a long time, but I came to realize life is that gift from God. And I think even when life begins in that horrible situation of rape, that it is something that God intended to happen.” Texas Republican Clayton Williams said, “Well, bad weather is like rape; if it’s inevitable, you might as well relax and enjoy it.” Rush Limbaugh, in response to Sandra Fluke’s testimony to congress about a lesbian friend who uses birth control for non contraceptive medical purposes, said, “What does it say about the college co-ed Susan Fluke [sic] who goes before a congressional committee and essentially says that she must be paid to have sex. What does that make her? It makes her a slut, right? It makes her a prostitute. She wants to be paid to have sex. She’s having so much sex she can’t afford the contraception. She wants you and me and the taxpayers to pay her to have sex.” Instead of MSNBC, Rush Limbaugh calls it PMSNBC to link their network to, what I suppose he believes, a woman’s menstrual cycle and thus weakness. Rush Limbaugh also refers to feminists as Feminazis. 

On January 17th we inaugurated what is in all essence our first openly misogynistic President. In “The Art of the Deal” he bragged about sleeping with married women, “If I told the real stories of my experiences with women, often seemingly very happily married and important women, this book would be a guaranteed best-seller.” And in interviews he has bragged about cheating on his own wives. In a presidential debate he expressed his disgust towards Carly Fiorina by saying, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” After tough but fair questions from Fox’s Megyn Kelly he tweeted, “I really enjoyed the debate tonight even though the @FoxNews trio, especially @megynkelly, was not very good or professional!” Then in an interview he stated, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever.” He tried to play it off as if that was a common thing to say to represent anger. I’ve never heard anything so bizarre in my life. He’s bragged to Howard Stern about popping into dressing rooms to catch contestants of his beauty pageants in a state of undress (sadly this even includes his teen pageants). But nothing compares to him bragging to Billy Bush about sexually molesting women. After talking about attempting to seduce Nancy O’Dell, a married woman, he then refers to Arianne Zucker, “I better use some Tic Tacs just in case I start kissing her. You know I'm automatically attracted to beautiful—I just start kissing them. It's like a magnet. Just kiss. I don't even wait. And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.” This was explained as “locker room” talk. I was in the military for 4 years and heard hundreds if not thousands of off-color statements about women but never once did I hear a fellow serviceman brag about forcing himself on a woman. This would be locker room talk in perhaps a school for serial killers (which, by the way, would be a great Netflix show…”Serial High”). My God, he wouldn’t even shake Angela Merkel’s hand. This is our President. 

The Equal Rights Amendment was first written in 1923 as: “Men and women shall have equal rights throughout the United States and every place subject to its jurisdiction. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.” In 1972, almost fifty years later, the amendment to the Constitution was finally passed by congress stating:

Section 1: Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any state on account of sex.  

Section 2: TheCongress shall have the power to enforce,by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.    

Section 3: This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification.

The Equal Rights Amendment is still not law in our land because only 35 of the 38 states required have ratified it. An amendment which basically states “treat women equally with men” cannot get ratified in The United States of America. And since then five states have even tried to “un-ratify” their support for the amendment.

Right wing evangelical Christian Pat Robertson has said, “The feminist agenda is not about equal rights for women. It is about a socialist, anti-family political movement that encourages women to leave their husbands, kill their children, practice witchcraft, destroy capitalism and become lesbians.”

“Help me, Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope.” Screw that, “Help us Princess Leia. You’re our only hope.”

It is not as if we have a dearth of strong women who are willing to fight for the rights of all women, and the rights of all of society. There is an abundance of them: Elizabeth Warren, J.K. Rowling, Ruth Bader Ginsberg, Emma Watson, Michelle Obama, Meryl Streep, Hillary Clinton, and Tulsi Gabbard; to name but a few. No, it is that we need to recognize, promote, and defend the strong women we have and support the rights and equality of all women regardless of their socio-economic status or political views.

It’s sad because it never really occurred to me how profound an influence Carrie Fisher had on me and the way she, and her beloved character, shaped the way I thought about and reacted to women in print and film, and to women in the public and in my own life; until she was gone. I always got a particular sensation and had a special reaction every time I saw her on television or saw her quoted on the internet. I just never really thought about why. I was actually painting her and Mark Hamill (and the droids you are not looking for) in a variation I was doing of a painting by the artist Ingres when I heard about her death. But I began work on this individual portrait of her the very next day.

Just the thoughts of a former eight year old from Ohio.

20”x20” Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 2017

This is my portrait of Billie Lourd as her character Lieutenant Kaydel Ko Connix in Star Wars. I was unaware that Carrie Fisher had a daughter until I saw her The Force Awakens. I hang the second portrait of Carrie Fisher next to my Billie Lourd painting in my home:)

Oil on Canvas 20”x20”

This is my second portrait of Carrie Fisher.

This is my second version of Johannes Vermeer's "Portrait of a Young Woman" which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. But I used Emma Watson as the model. We all need more Hermione in our lives.

Oil on Canvas 12" x 12"

William-Adolphe Bouguereau was at once both blessed and cursed. During the 19th century he was a wildly successful painter; a darling of the salon, the lead instructor at Acadamie Julian, and the winner of the Prix de Rome at the age of 26. He was a master of his medium, a strict academic and traditionalist and perhaps one of the greatest painters to have ever lived. But his curse was the future of painting. The middle and end of his career coincided with the rise of Impressionism and the birth of modern art. Bouguereau was reviled and mocked by the new painters. His meticulously executed and refined canvases with their perfect finish and mythological and pastoral themes epitomized what was wrong with painting according to these new purveyors of modernism. Through their tireless sarcasm and ridicule of his work, his paintings became known as "chocolate box" art. Paul Guaguin thought his work belonged only in brothels. Bouguereau's rise was meteoric and his fall tragic. His work was once again appreciated for its beauty, its compositions and mastery by the end of the following century. But this was far too late for Bouguereau who left this Earth watching his life's creations decline.

Oil and Gold Leaf on Canvas  30" x 40"

I first painted when I was eleven. I’ve no memory of a time when I wasn’t. Holding a brush is the most natural feeling I have. My first works were in oil. But I soon gravitated towards acrylic out of necessity and convenience. Later I developed a method for placing oil glazes on top of an acrylic under base. Acrylic is so very fast and thus suits my speed of creation. It is a blocky chunky medium that tumbles across a canvas like rolling bits of prismatic gravel. But it dries even faster than I paint. It is limiting. Oil, on the other hand, is so ephemeral, so shiny and so liquid. It takes forever to dry but until then you can move it around the canvas like buckets of water moved around a tile floor with a mop. It is like colourful plumes and puddles of gloriously shimmering pigment suspended above the surface of the canvas. But it can be mysterious and difficult to control. Glazes of oil paint hover above the surface of my canvas as sunny skies that either smile upon my base creation or lour upon it’s ruin. 

Recreating a Vermeer affords me insight into the mind of a genius. His compositions and techniques are wonderful to behold and walking in their lines and playing in their colours and shapes envelops me and whispers me glimpses of his artistic musings. I have adapted my means and methods to afford me the ability to properly pay homage to his creative gifts. My new techniques seem almost too easy at times, as if multiple decades of painting have suddenly coalesced into clear artistic vision and material manipulation. God it almost feels like I’m fucking cheating now.

“Girl with a Pearl Earring” is powerful. Her direct simple gaze looks into and through the viewer. She is timeless and beyond beautiful. My girl wears a scarf I imagined with the house crest of Ravenclaw and is adorned with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows dangling from her ear. I fondly think of her as my girlfriend at Hogwarts. And no, I hold no clear distinction between imagination and reality.

Oil on Canvas 14" x 18"

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 14” x 18”

2017

The Libyan Sibyl is a figure from Michelangelo’s ceiling fresco in the Sistine Chapel (created from 1508 to 1512 BCE) in the Vatican in Rome Italy. Sibyl is derived from the ancient Greek word “sibylla” which means prophetess. There are twelve prophets or seers painted on the ceiling and they represent seven Jewish characters who prophesied or heralded the coming of the Messiah in the Tanakh or “Old Testament.” The five sibyls are characters from classic mythology who represent the arrival of change. The Libyan Sibyl was one of the last of these figures to be painted and the overall area of her section measures roughly fifteen by twelve and a half feet. Her composition was broken into twenty giornate or sections of plaster and was probably executed in twenty days work with Michelangelo’s full sized cartoons being transferred to the wet plaster by pricking pinholes along the lines of the drawing and then pouncing a cloth bag filled with charcoal along these lines. Transferring a drawing to plaster this way is known as spolvero. Michelangelo would then paint each section before that area of plaster dried. Errors or sections the artist disliked would be chiseled away and redone. Because this was one of the later figures of the ceiling it is especially magnificent for the artist would of have had several years of practice in his technique of fresco painting. It is of importance to note that Michelangelo resisted this commission because he was primarily a sculptor and he himself referred to painting as “not my art.”

This is one of, if not my favorite figures from the Sistine Ceiling. The grace, complexity, and curvature of the figure is a perfect example of Michelangelo Buonarroti’s mastery of the human figure. He is the world’s greatest artist for his skill in drawing, painting, and sculpture has no equal. No artist before or after has come close to mastering so many artistic disciplines not to mention his architectural accomplishments or his half-ass poetry. No human being has ever been as creatively multi-faceted or prolific as this beloved yet tortured man who came to be known as divine within his own lifetime.

My version of his Sibyl is an illustrated example of how I see spacial relationships in this world. When I look upon an arrangement of shapes I see an inter-connecting array of lines which forms the framework of an invisible composition that plays within my mind. It is how I artistically or instinctively know where one form or shape should be in relation to another or within a grouping of others. When I draw or paint or sculpt these guidelines or spatial yearnings guide my eye and hand to produce whatever line or shape I find pleasing. This impulse or obsession to view, judge, measure and manipulate compositional arrangements has dominated my existence for as long as I can remember. This impulse is so overpowering it even dictates which can of spinach or jar of peanut butter I choose from the grocery shelf based on each jar’s spatial relationship to each other and their relationships to the other cans or jars of food or shapes of the shelves surrounding them. In my parents’ car, as a child, I would look at the shapes of trees and the placement of bushes or houses on the lots we drove past or the arrangement of clouds within the sky. My father would tease me and say “If I dropped you off right here you would have no idea how to get home” even if we were only a mile from our house. He was right. My Libyan Sibyl illuminates the spatial complexity of how I artistically visualize the arrangement and communication of Michelangelo’s lines and shapes to one another within this composition. Libyca was the daughter of Lamia and Zeus. She foretold the “coming of the day when that which is hidden shall be revealed.” In this work I have revealed the operation of my mind.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 36" x 48"

This is my version of a Roy Lichtenstein painting. It is not based upon a specific composition of his so I'd say it is rather in the manner of Lichtenstein. Please feel free to insert your favorite expletive into her thought bubble.

Acrylic on Canvas 22" x 30" 

The Last Supper is an oil and tempera painting created by Leonardo da Vinci at the end of the fifteenth century in the Convent of Santa Marfia delle Grazie in Milan, Italy. It is a brilliant composition where Leonardo utilized all of the lines of perspective to converge upon the face of Jesus. In accordance with this perspective the figures farthest from the center are actually larger than the figures adjacent to Jesus. Leonardo divided the disciples into groups of three and included three windows as perhaps a reference to the Holy Trinity but compositionally it was a very clever means of organizing the figures. From Leonardo’s notebooks it is revealed that he identifies the figures as, from left to right, Bartholomew, James son of Alphaeus, Andrew, Judas Iscariot, Peter, John, Thomas, James the Greater, Phillip, Matthew, Jude Thaddeus, and Simon the Zealot. Other artists portraying this scene have isolated Judas but Leonardo simply lowers him into the composition and places him within shadow (he is also actually tiny compared to the others). He holds his bag of silver and reacts to the statement of Jesus “The one who has dipped his hand into the bowl with me will betray me,” (Matthew 26:23) as Judas himself is reaching for a piece of bread to dip. His elbow knocks over a pillar of salt which some consider to be unlucky or an evil omen. Peter is shown holding a knife in probable reference to his violent reaction to Jesus’s arrest in the garden.

Leonardo painted the work on a double layer of dry plaster with an undercoat of white lead. This might have worked but for the fact that it was painted on an exterior wall. The increased humidity, contraction, and expansion of the wall coupled with Leonardo adding tempera on top of his oil paint created an unstable surface which almost immediately began deteriorating. Within a dozen years it was thought of as in ruin. 

My composition both mimics and emphasizes Leonardo’s. I created additional lines of perspective to compliment Leonardo’s and the figures, furniture, and space react and move in accordance with these lines. I first drew out the original composition in charcoal then worked the entire surface and developed my own composition in acrylic paint. Then the entire surface was reworked and glazed with oil. I also drew additionally from the work of the artist Giampietrino who completed a full size copy of Leonardo’s Last Supper within twenty or so years after the original. 

This painting represents four months of my life. If you consider the knowledge and skill required, then this work represents the entirety of my existence. 

I call my painting “The Next Supper.” 

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 38" x 96"

My version of Johannes Vermeer's "Portrait of a Young Woman" which hangs in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. But of course I used Elisabeth Moss who plays Peggy Olsen on Mad Men.

This is my painted variation of one of Andy Warhol’s Campbell’s Soup Can silk screen paintings with a political influence from one of my favorite artists Honore Daumier. I have always loved Warhol’s silk screen works and the cleverness of portraying something mundane (something “canned”) as monumental. Daumier was a 19th century printmaker, painter, and social satirist who’s work I immediately thought of when the idea of this painting first occurred to me.

Like many others, I was less than pleased with the choice facing our nation in the late fall of 2016. Early on I recognized that Donald Trump might win the Republican nomination for President of the United States. He was saying exactly what many Americans wished to hear and exactly what many wished to say themselves. I also recognized that the Democratic National Committee had already chosen their candidate even before the primary process had begun and was simply counting on me to vote for their candidate because I had no choice. This painting is an attempt to crystalize mythoughts about the election between these two candidates. I thought of something so beloved and so American as a pint of Ben & Jerry’s filled with a choice of flavors not particularly desirable to one side of the political fence, nor the other. The following explains the words I used in the work to describe the candidates and illustrate my thoughts.

“Dickhead Swirl” 

Donald Trump has bragged about cheating on his wives and also about sleeping with married women. That’s what a dick does. 

Trump has often been accused of stiffing small contractors out of payments for work done or for goods furnished because he knew they were not wealthy enough to bring suit against him to recover their losses. And by filing for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection “six” times he has financially protected himself while hanging many small contractors and business associates “out to dry.” Dickhead moves.

Donald Trump also led the “birther” movement which accused President Obama of being born in Kenya and not in Hawaii. It actually wouldn’t of mattered. Barack Obama’s mother was a United States citizen and thus he was by definition a naturalized citizen. He could just have easily been born in Canada with a U.S. mom and still run for the office, just like Ted Cruz was doing. It was because he was black. This was a racist movement attempting to delegitimatize Obama’s presidency. Trump is very proud of his involvement in this slanderous campaign. Racist dickhead.

Trump’s reaction to Megyn Kelly’s debate questions, “You could see there was blood coming out of her eyes. Blood coming out of her wherever” and his referring to attorney Elizabeth Beck as “disgusting” because she needed to break from a court proceeding in order to pump breast milk for her infant daughter, illustrates his level of discomfort with the very physiological nature of a woman. He stated his disbelief that a woman could even be President by expressing his disgust towards Carly Fiorina when he said, “Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that? Can you imagine that, the face of our next president?!” during a Republican debate. He has bragged to Howard Stern about popping into dressing rooms to catch contestants of his beauty pageants in a state of undress (according to various contestants this even includes his teen pageants). Many women have accused him of sexually groping them and Trump was caught by a live microphone explaining to Billy Bush how he has sexually molested women in the past. This actually goes from dickhead to misogynist but I’ll stick to the theme.

Trump imitated and mocked Serge Kovaleski, a disabled reporter from The New York Times during a campaign rally. After he was called out for his behavior, I noticed he was attempting to recreate these same movements, for a brief time, by attacking others in an attempt to make it seem that he wasn’t mocking a disabled person in the first place and it was just part of his standard “Trump mock routine.” But if you notice, he hasn’t used those exaggerated movements since when attacking others. Too late dickhead, we saw what you did.

He’s a braggart. He brags about how much money he has, how intelligent he his, and how he is the best businessman in the world. He has declared bankruptcy six times, failed at every business he has ever started on his own (besides some real estate ventures), and a leaked portion of his 1995 state income taxes show losses of 916 million dollars for that year alone. If that is what constitutes a “good” businessman then what makes a bad one? Someone who actually “makes” 916 million dollars in a year? Braggarts are dickheads.

He lies a lot. Whether it is about how badly the media treats him, how terrorist attacks are under reported, Barack Obama’s birth certificate, that President Obama tapped his phones, the murder rate in our country, or even something as stupid as crowd sizes, his statements are often more factually incorrect than correct. Liars are dickheads. He is often misinformed on many facts and seems to get his intelligence briefings from FOX news. Dickheads love misinformation.

“Xtreme White Ice Cream”

Whether it was his attacks on Mexican immigrants, his desire to ban Muslims, associations with the alt right, leading the birther movement or his allusions to violence at his rallies when he said, in “the old days” a demonstrator would be “carried out on a stretcher,” Donald was clearly running a campaign aimed at a particular portion of the white electorate. But what “old days” was he referring to in his rally? Was this the old days his campaign slogan “Make America Great Again!” referred to? When was this day when America was great? Was that when African Americans were counted as three-fifths of a person or when women weren’t allowed to vote? Was that when women were expected to stay home and raise babies or when a black person had to give up his or her seat on the bus? Maybe it was the time when homosexual and transgender people had to hide in shame or when it was alright to call someone jewish if they were trying to save money in some fashion? Was it before unions when children worked in factories and Americans worked for poverty wages up to sixteen hours a day in unsafe and dangerous conditions? Maybe he means before the Civil Rights Movement or when women had no control over their own reproductive care? The fact is that for many white males (and all rich white males) this country has always been great. But for everyone else, I’m not so sure of when that moment in time was. 

“with Real Fake Stale Circus Peanuts” 

From his escalator announcement with its paid attendees to his talking about penis size in a presidential debate, this campaign was a circus. The amount of lies and the amount of misinformation generated was at once real and fake. The excitement was real. He found a beloved base who adored someone who had no filter whatsoever and didn’t care who or how he insulted people they felt were part of the problem. But his promises were not real. No, a foreign country (Mexico) is not paying for structures to be built here in the United States. No, coal isn’t coming back nor was there ever a liberal war against it. The cheapness of oil and natural gas, landscapes devastated, acid rain, pollution of the air and water, dangerous work conditions and global warming are what’s waging a war on coal. Tax cuts for the rich? Are we still talking about these stale Republican ideas? You can almost mark the very start of the shrinking of the middle class to the enactment of Ronald Reagan’s first tax cuts. This is when the national debt exploded and the federal government began cutting more and more social programs and safety nets for its citizens while money was funneled to the rich. This was the first true experiment in trickle down economics. Donald Trump, himself, has said that U.S. wages are too high and has waffled on minimum wage. But he firmly believes that people in his tax bracket should pay less in taxes. I have heard these wealthy people characterized as “job creators.” But they aren’t, consumers are. Consumers and their choices in where and how to spend their money are what determines which jobs will flourish or decline. And also the idea of trickle down economics assumes that poor or middle class families would have no idea what to do with extra money if they had it. Surely they would eat or bury any additional income instead of spending or investing it. But the reality is that economies are successfully built and maintained from the bottom up. Yes, it takes innovative and industrious business people and financial visionaries, but they don’t mean a sack of beans unless there are consumers with enough money to buy their products. A one million dollar tax break to a multi-millionaire or billionaire causes far less growth in our economy and grows fewer jobs than would a thousand dollar tax break (or even subsidy) to a thousand different middle class or poorer families. A thousand families would be buying dishwashers, televisions, clothes, or whatever they needed thus fueling economic growth in a thousand different neighborhoods as opposed to just one wealthy household. Donald Trump was running on the failed economic ideas of the past, stale Circus Peanut ideas, ideas that are very real in that many in the government and in the media still sing their praises but fake in their true ability to help real Americans and to slow (instead of causing) the transfer of wealth from the bottom rungs of the ladder to the top.

“No Choice Nougat”

Based on everything stated above you can see why I felt I had no choice in voting against Donald Trump. But I understand that many Trump voters felt as if they had no choice either. Hillary Clinton was not going to give them a conservative Supreme Court Justice nor was she promising to resurrect dying industries or recreate the happier times of the 1950’s or 1830’s. And to others who wanted to “blow up” the system, well Hillary certainly wasn’t going to do that. 

“Some Sorta of Ice Cream” 

It was clear throughout the primary campaign that the Democratic National Committee had already chosen who their candidate was going to be. I believe it discouraged many possible candidates on the left from running and thus diminished the strength of the field. The overwhelming majority of super delegates pledged their support to her before the first primary vote was even cast. But it was the lack of focus of her campaign and the lack of clear vision that was most troubling for many voters like me. His message was “Make America Great Again.” That has both “America” and “Great” in it. Hillary’s was “I’m with Her.” Huh? It has been recently revealed that “Because it’s Her Turn” was even considered at one time for her slogan. I’m pretty sure that was Bob Dole’s campaign slogan. I gathered she was going to continue the policies of Barrack Obama, even the bad ones like support for TPP (which Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren opposed). But she never articulated a clear vision of what she wanted to do in office, why she was running, or what direction she wanted the country to take. Xtreme White Ice Cream is a clear distinct flavor. Some Sorta Ice Cream is more like “what about desert? Do you want a baked good or maybe some sorta ice cream.” Her message was neither a distinct direction nor a detailed vision for our nation. The majority of her speeches and answers at the final three debates seemed more based on “how could you vote for him?” and not based on why you should vote for her.

“with Judgmentally Questionable Nougat”

I always viewed Hillary Clinton as wildly intelligent, very hard working, and also extremely qualified to be President. I just have never quite understood her judgement. In the 2008 Democratic Primary I voted for Barack Obama. I liked his policies and his vision for the country but the one thing that really steered me towards him and away from Clinton was her vote for the Iraq war. I know that she has said that she was only voting for the authority for the administration to use military means if necessary. But even from my little nook in far away Ohio, I knew that Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Wolfowitz were just itching to get into that sun drenched, oil laden haven. Within a few short months following September 11th I could see the writing on the wall and became alarmed that the administration was using the attacks of 2001 to justify a war on Iraq. I could see from their fear based and dubious statements that this was to be their real agenda. Declaring war on a nation which had nothing to do with the tragic events of that September morning is one of, if not the biggest, foreign policy mistakes ever undertaken by the United States of America. Imagine if we had declared war on Korea after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. This was just as glaring an error. Yes, they were in the Middle East and yes the country was chock full of Muslims; but that was not justification for a war which allowed Osama Bin Laden to escape justice (for the time being), nor rational when the religions and ethnicities of the Iraqi people were taken into account, or Saddam Hussein’s personal hatred of Al Qaeda and his country’s stance against Islamic terrorism. It was easy to see the disaster awaiting us here at home and in the region of the Middle East if this delicate balance of power was upset. Clinton’s vote for the war was not one of patriotism; it was a sign of bad judgment.

Hillary Clinton was paid nearly 22 million dollars in speaking fees after leaving the office of Secretary of State, for about 200,000 dollars a speech. It was all perfectly legal, and everyone one in Washington does it, but that doesn’t mean they should. The same cronyism that led Dick Cheney from Halliburton to the White House and then led both of them and the rest of us to Iraq is part of the same unholy union of big business and government which infests our democracy and steers its resources towards the wealthiest of our society. Her paid speeches were nothing more or less than the lobbying done by Cheney and countless others. If she was planning (and we know she was) to run for the Presidency then this is a stunning lack of judgment to accept those funds. These paid speeches were advanced Quid Pro Quo for when these organizations and businesses assumed she would be President of the United States. Do you believe Goldman Sachs gave her 200,000 dollars because they were dying to know what she had to say? She could of sat on stage for half an hour lighting her farts and they would of happily paid her 200 grand...perhaps they would of paid her even more:)

Using a private email server as Secretary of State also reflects a serious lack of judgment. Anyone with a job using an email knows that you leave your personal business off your job account and that you never use your personal email for conducting business at work. In most jobs you would be seriously reprimanded or even fired for crossing these lines. I believe she has been unfairly attacked and targeted by many on the right for decades and she probably thought this might keep them from “snooping into her business.” But in a government job (or practically any other) this is not a decision she should have been allowed to make. And what she failed to grasp (and miraculously everyone around her too) was that setting up a private account would draw far more scrutiny than just using the email account the State Department would have surely assigned her.

Huma Abedin might be the best political operative since sliced bread and Hillary might have thought of her as a second daughter, but she had no business being associated with the Clinton campaign in 2016. In 2011, five years before Clinton’s second run at the Presidency, Abedin’s husband Anthony Weiner was discovered to be texting sexually explicit images of himself through his Twitter account. At this point Clinton should have made a few calls and gotten Huma another job. It is not judgmentally sound politics to run for office with someone by your side who reminds the public of a sex scandal (unfortunately her husband already did). Now imagine the optics of seeing Hillary getting off a bus or plane next to not just one person, but now sandwiched between two people who remind the public of sex scandals. She might have loved the young woman and felt sorry for her situation with her husband Anthony, but if Clinton honestly felt running for President was for the common good and for the betterment of our nation, then finding a new job for Huma was a small sacrifice. Abedin, in forgetting that her emails were on a laptop shared with her husband Weiner, was also (through sexual scandal) ultimately responsible for FBI director James Comey’s announcement that they were reopening the investigation into Clinton just weeks before the election in November.

I still believe she could have won the election if she would have chosen a running mate other than Tim Kaine. Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, or even Sherrod Brown would have brought progressive and younger voters to the voting booths and helped balance her more moderate views. Or she could have chosen Cory Booker, Julian Castro, or Xavier Becerra to expand her base. But she chose a boring white guy who pretty much agreed with all of her moderate policies. Judgment.

I have no idea what Hillary Clinton is like in person but I know her appearing uncomfortable or awkward in the limelight didn’t help (especially when running against a reality television star). I also respect many of her accomplishments and many of the things she did and tried to do with her life. I was deeply moved and impressed by the biographical film that was played of her at the Democratic Convention. I just think, that somehow, she might have gotten lost in that Washington beltway and become separated from the spirit and the democratic vision of her youth that the film portrayed.

There are many adjectives that never were and never will be used to describe candidate and now President Trump: nice, thoughtful, well-read, attentive, qualified. I believe you can apply all of these words to Hillary Clinton. But she was a lousy candidate. Donald Trump, by all evidence, is not even a good or normal person; but his many false promises and the free media coverage made him a winning candidate for the fall of 2016. He sang to the masses the words of promise and fear and words of reaction in a time when many saw the country, and even the world, as lost. Donald might have alluded to the shadowy demons of our nature but Hillary failed to illuminate a path to its angels.

“Choice”, Acrylic on Canvas, 24”x30”

A painting is a conversation. The blank of the canvas is the same as that static moment of meeting where two people pause just prior to the words flowing out. One brush stroke, one statement, begins this dialog. The artist guides the flow of marks as they spill out and build upon the surface of the canvas; as a speaker attempts to guide the direction of a conversation to satisfy his or her desires. Every stroke, every colour, creates fewer and fewer correct possibilities for what should or could appropriately follow in relation to what has been revealed; the same as the statements of a spoken conversation dictate what words or thoughts might appropriately follow. Once this conversation has begun it no longer exists solely inside the painter’s head but exists simultaneously upon this canvas of reality; the same as when the words have tumbled out and hang in beauty in the air for all to hear. A conversation flowers and can grow wondrous and meaningful with clever self references to earlier things spoken and with allusions of cleverness to come. The participants parlay back and forth and weave a playful tapestry of fact, fiction and personal interest but also of deference to one another. Each speaker must both follow and lead in order to create a dialog worthy of remembrance. As a painting develops the canvas itself becomes its own voice; its own partner in the dialog of creation. The artist must listen to what the canvas is saying and respond not only skillfully, thoughtfully and playfully; but without hesitation. Over think what you are about to say in a conversation or attempt to selfishly control it’s direction will result in a stilted, forgettable discussion. The painter too must willingly give himself to the moment at hand, risking everything and holding nothing back. Hold back anything  of yourself in the act of creation and the conversation crumbles. A painting is a conversation and the artist must not only speak, but also listen. 

Johannes Vermeer’s “The Artist’s Studio” is a complicated conversation indeed and no one has been better at weaving the play of lights, darks, shapes, and colours into something whole and beautiful. As he constructed his composition he created wonderfully correct and wondrously beautiful shapes. All of his elements stand alone in beauty and thought yet support and reinforce one another as bricks do in a wall or as words do in a conversation. In recreating this work I sought to change everything and yet nothing at all. My painting contains all of the elements of my household and my artist paints a cubist version of his woman in blue. Every element I changed created a beautiful chance for failure and success as I attempted to properly weave my statements into a conversation Johannes had hundreds of years ago.

What does my painting say? Alice in Wonderland looks upon the white rabbit or jealously upon the girl in blue. The model looks at the magazine on the table while the Vendetta mask gazes smilingly upon the sculpture on the table which itself looks to see what is hidden behind the curtain. As the artist pauses at his easel he turns to his model in blue; or does he watch the rabbit vanish down the tunnel as he contemplates his own sanity slowly receding away? My artist’s studio is a dialog of harmony yet also of shared and hidden meanings. Simply put, my painting is a conversation about me.

My painting of Frank Frazetta's work "Dark Kingdom" which was also used for Molly Hatchet's album cover "Flirtin' with Disaster." I always loved Frazetta's work since first seeing it on the covers of Robert E. Howard's Conan the Barbarian series I read as child. And for all of the kids out there, an album is a large cardboard container used to store and protect a large disc of plastic music.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 30” x 40”

2018

This is a portrait of a man named Sandalio. It was done in the style of Diego Rivera and the composition is based upon his 1941 painting "Self-Portrait Dedicated to Irene Rich." 

I included different symbols to represent the life of Sandalio. He was very proud of his Puerto Rican heritage and the calla lily flowers in the background (a direct reference to the works of Diego Rivera) have Puerto Rican machete symbols as their spadix or pollen stems. On his shirt is a stylized design of the flor de maga flower which is Puerto Rico's national flower and is also known as the Puerto Rican hibiscus. His shirt button is based upon a Taino Indian tattoo design of a small indigenous frog the coqui. This design is also a symbol of the island together with the sun and is one of the most popular Taino symbols. Taino Indians are indigenous to the Caribbean Islands. The great island, Puerto Rico, and its people are referred to as Boriken.

The other design on his shirt is a stylized version of the Korean Service Medal with a Bronze Star from when he served with the 19th Infantry during the Korean War.

The most important symbol on the painting is the flower on the small piece of paper Sandalio holds. It is a gardenia which was the the favorite flower of his wife Eugenia and I have used it to represent her. For this I chose the gardenia absolute, for I thought it appropriate. 

Oil on Canvas 24" x 30"

This is my cubist version of the wonderful actress Bette Davis. When I was a child Ms. Davis was already older than my grandparents and often played eccentric roles which often startled or terrified me. I did not know of her great beauty or talent until much later in my life.

It has been a reoccurring dream of mine since I was a little child. It is night, I am exhausted and I am swimming towards a house on the shore where I know Marilyn Monroe is dying. If I can only reach her I know I can save her life. But I never make it. In the dark, in the cold, I never find my way to her.

Johannes Vermeer might have have been the greatest painter who ever lived; not because of subject matter, scale, philosophy of art, nor daring. Quite simply Vermeer may have possessed a greater command of the medium of oil paint and a knowledge of colour theory than any other artist who ever painted. He may have used a camera obscura to witness the diffusion and play of light (as quite convincingly expressed by David Hockney) but we all take advantage of the tools afforded us.

I created a copy of this painting for my Father. But the lion head finials of the original have been changed to my Dad's dead dog Buffy. My hope is that Johannes would not mind.

The Plastic Arts are sometimes considered to be the three dimensional visual art forms of ceramics or sculpture, but sometimes also defined as all art forms excluding that of literature and music. I consider The Mona Lisa to be the first plastic painting. Leonardo's portrait achieved a level of realism previously unattained in the annals of Western Art. And by saying "real" I in no way imply a photographic realness. What I mean is that it is truly a picture of a woman created from paint herself. She appears to be a real creature made out of paint, not a painted likeness of a woman.  It would seem perfectly natural for her to wink at you or get up and walk out of the frame. She is modeled three dimensionally in a way that makes her real, or as real as a paint person can be.

I created this image using a small sponge tool I made myself. It is composed of 6,912 squares whose colors were decided upon by their overall value. It is just a massive value painting done in a printmaking method.

I was once building a puzzle of The Mona Lisa. My girlfriend of the time, Holly, commented that she liked the size of the puzzle. I told her that it was less than two inches off the size of the original art work and that I did not know why they would not have just made the puzzle the same size of the painting itself. She replied, "Well, they always find one way to fuck you."

This is my variation on Mary Cassatt's "The Bath." My beautiful friend and her son posed for the faces of the figures.

The artist Jean Auguste Dominique Ingres was a powerhouse who, with his audacious anatomical bending and creative restructuring of the pictorial form, inspired the modernity of Picasso and Cezanne. And with his artistic mastery was the hero and idol of Degas. This is my third variation on a work of Ingres and I cannot fully emphasize the extent of my admiration for the creations of this master.

This is my favorite painting of Ingres and I saw it in person for the first time at the Frick in New York two years ago. Ingres began his portrait of Vicomtesse Louise-Albertine d’Haussonville in 1842 and finished his painting three years later. I began this work fourteen months ago intermittently stopping to work on two other paintings and to finish a third. The composition was first drawn in pencil on canvas after my decisions regarding the composition were decided. Then it was painted in the old school Grisaille manner employed by Ingres, with a fully fleshed black and white underpainting. This was done first in acrylic and then in multiple layers of oil until I was satisfied with the shapes, values, and forms. Then thin layers of color were glazed on top of the monochromatic image to build up a structure of color. It is far easier to model forms with two colors, like black and white, as opposed to modeling with three or even five or six colors that might be involved in the subtleties of flesh tones or other objects. This method is both labor and time extensive but yields a result that is solid and rich and also deep in tone, color, and substance. In all I probably spent close to twelve hundred hours on this work from start to finish. I learned so much about the painting process and about my own technical capabilities during this painting’s creation. My own style is very graphic or linear and it is a struggle for me to adhere to the fully realized three dimensional forms constructed by this 19th century master. I have only been painting full time for a little over four and a half years and I am only now beginning to appreciate the levels of comprehension and mastery achieved by a lifetime of a single minded pursuit of a craft by a painter such as Ingres.

The model for my painting is the incomparable and unstoppable Bianca Rose. She was a former student of mine who is now a very successful hair designer and Disney enthusiast. Her beauty and countenance, combined with Disney’s now ownership of Star Wars, made her the perfect choice for me to portray her as an elegant French Princess in a Star Wars themed painting. But, unlike the good princesses of Disney, her figure actually represents the evil Empire in my Star Wars universe (no offense Bianca). The Vicomtesse (French noblewoman) calmly engages the viewer in her immaculate attire while the smug image of the Emperor graces the decoration of the vase to her right. Darth Vader, pictured on her hair clasp in the reflection in the mirror, is shown corrupting the heart and soul of the virtuous Princess Amidala. But behind the back of this gorgeous facade of a shiny well oiled military machine, a rag tag group of rebels are escaping from the bureau upon which the Empire leans. The figures of Luke, Leia and the droids were painted from my own Hot Toys figures which now stand atop my piano (nerd alert). The chairs in the bottom of the work are my own while a little green ceramic box I made finishes the edge of the composition. Like all of my variations, it is both an homage to an artistic inspiration and a reference to myself and my nature.

I have since changed the portrait from Bianca to the model used by Ingres. I was unhappy with the painting so I assumed that it was not having the original face from his painting that I had fallen in love with. This was entirely incorrect. After I repainted the head I realized that it was my ineptitude in mimicking the flesh tones of Ingres, that had bothered me so. I cannot paint flesh like Ingres. I deeply regret this fuckup caused by my perfectionistic instincts.

36” x 48” Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

My painting has nothing to do with Judaism nor is it an apology for the actions of Hamas on October 7th. My painting is about the illegal and immoral actions of a state and the U.S.’s complicity in those actions.

I do not use the term genocide lightly. The Bush, the Biden, and the Trump administrations all respectively labeled the actions of Sudan (1000’s of civilians killed, 2 million displaced), Myanmar (7,000 civilians killed, 1 million displaced), and China (who displaced and encamped 1 million Muslim civilians) as acts of genocide.

In all 3 of these cases the countries accused of “genocide” said they were responding to terrorist attacks. And all 3 of these actions and responses were eerily similar to the response of Israel in Gaza where, as of 23 April, at least 34,183 have been people killed (with 72% women and children), 77,084 wounded, and 1.7 million civilians displaced.

In 1948 alone, 15,000 Palestinians were killed and more than 800,000 displaced from their ancestral homes with Israel destroying 531 Palestinian towns and villages in 70 separate massacres. Dozens of 1000’s more have been killed and displaced since then (not even counting the current civilians killed and displaced since October).

You can call it apartheid, if the term genocide makes you uncomfortable. Or you could simply call it “an organized and systemic humanitarian and political oppression and forcible displacement of an indigenous people.”

Who calls it an apartheid state? Both Nelson Mandela and Archbishop Desmond Tutu said that Israel’s apartheid is even more brutal and more devastating than South Africa’s was.

Since 1948, the U.S. has given Israel $300 billion in economic & military aid and has used its veto power in the U.N. Security Council 42 times to block resolutions condemning Israel. And just last week, the U.S. vetoed a U.N. resolution that would have paved the way for U.N. membership for Palestine.

Genocide and apartheid are old hat for the U.S. (see Native Americans & Slavery). And I understand that a very vocal minority’s religious mythology dictates our unquestioning support for a state of Israel. But must that support include Israel’s oppression of an indigenous population?

This is an adaptation of Picasso’s “The Crying Woman.” The model was a student of mine named Jenna Bethel who, besides being an exemplary art student, was also a person I found to be hilarious. I did a version of Vermeer’s “Girl with the Pearl Earring” as well.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

2000

Of what I have read in art texts and magazines, witnessed and discussed personally, and been taught (or preached to) in school; the single purpose of art is communication. If I was creating solely for the purpose of communication I would only be a writer or public speaker. But I am a visual artist. When all else is stripped away I am simply a creator of images.

What good is a speaker who speaks so softly no one can hear him? What good is a writer if his command of grammar is so terrible his words are incomprehensible? Much of the visual art produced today suffers because it over emphasizes message over form. What good is a work of art that "could" communicate a wonderful idea but is not visually pleasing or interesting enough to hold the viewers' attention long enough for them to discern the work's meaning?

The general public is disgusted with the work being presented to them today. There are artists (and writers of art) who dismiss the public's opinion as being ignorant or uninformed. These same people proclaim art as being a form of communication only. How is there art and writing about message and meaning if the public neither understands nor likes it enough to care? Are theses artists and writers producing only for themselves in some sort of mutal admiration society?

This is not to say that art cannot communicate deep philosophical, social, political, or religious ideas but it is conveyed through a visual medium. We must first interest the viewers to hold their attention and then, and only then, will they desire a meaning. An art work has failed if an artistic statement is what is required to give the work purpose or success as a piece. If an artist claims that his work is an expression of his inner being or mind and his art is ugly, what does that say about his soul?

"We believe in the autonomy of art; art for us is not the means but the end; any artist who has in view anything but the beautiful is not an artist in our eyes." Theophile Gautier',1856

This painting is based upon Vermeer's work titled the same. It's meaning is only what you see and put into it yourself, and yes, I see the irony in attaching a written diatribe railing against the over intellectualization of the modern art world to a work which essentially has no meaning whatsoever; besides beauty of course.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

2001

For me butterflies represent rebirth, resurrection, transfiguration, or even reincarnation. We are all changing. I am not the same person I was a few years ago; not even a few months ago. Everything we observe and experience changes us in little or profound ways. We go through tiny revolutions of thought and feeling until we have evolved into sometimes entirely different sorts. Our basic essence, our core beliefs of wickedness and good may remain unaltered; but how we perceive ourselves and how we present ourselves to others constantly changes. The truer your observations and the more unabashed your experiences gauges the levels of yourself you shall discover and what kind of person you might truly be. And often you won't particularly like what you have found.

In this painting butterflies represent nature and the possibility of creation and rebirth of spirit. Bullets represent destruction and stand as the opposite of natural creation. The words Not and Lies are a double-entendre that represents how we should be honest with ourselves that destruction, that violence, that war is not the answer and that rebirth and the embracement of nature and creation are. We teach our children that violence begets violence. When you strike another they will strike you back, or later strike someone else. We tell our children that violence does not solve anything and that it is never the answer.

The United States of America has troops stationed in over 135 different nations, some for over fifty years. We spend roughly the equivalent of the entire remainder of the world on a military which can only truly be compared to the armies of Rome in its degree and scope. Edward Gibbon wrote, in his History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, that Rome "endeavored to convince mankind that the Roman power, raised above the temptation of conquest, was actuated only by the love of order and justice." Now the U.S. does engage in massive and wondrous deeds of relief, charity, and donation. But we also give money and arms to countries in conflict and crisis and all of our charity is accompanied by military boots on the ground. Preemptive Strike, Tactical Military Attack, and Collateral Damage are all that many countries in the world know from or of us. Imagine if we closed all of our bases and brought home all of our soldiers? Imagine if we never gave guns and military aid to anyone else? Imagine if our entire foreign policy consisted of giving nothing but food, medicine and agricultural and industrial aid to the world? Imagine if every child in the world's vision of us was not a soldier with a gun in his hand, but a package of food, a blanket, or a vaccine or aspirin; with a little American flag printed upon it. Maybe even a little American flag with a smily face printed in the middle? Why would a child like that ever want to grow up to attack us?

We could change ourselves and the world if we wanted to. Violence begets violence. That is not a lie. Not Bullets, Butterflies.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 20” x 20”

2018

Synthetic Cubism, nuff said:)

Acrylic on Canvas 16"x20"

The four basic principles of cubism:

1. The geometric dissection and analytical reconfiguration of a subject. (busting an object into geometric shapes and thinking about how they might be put back together)

2. Multiple viewpoints expressed within a single viewpoint. (showing the back or side of an object while simultaneously portraying the front)

3. The interaction and combination of positive and negative space. (there is no clear boundary or line between foreground and background)

4. The poetic or lyrical representation of a subject. (paint what is interesting, ignore what is not)

This is my portrait of the opera singer Maria Callas. I love her voice and her beauty.

This is my version of Ingres's "The Source." I have dressed the figure in garb reminiscent of the 1920's when my house was built. Instead of a jug of water she cradles a stained glass face of Clara Bow in her hands who was the world's most famous actress in that same era. Within the stained glass window I placed a mirrored reflection of the original painting as if it is facing the girl. It is a stained glass piece designed by me and created by my mother.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 24" x 48'

My painting of Maisie Williams aka Arya Stark aka The Many-Faced God aka Death. 

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 20” x 20”

2017

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 20” x 20”

2017

A painting of my friends Mike's and Franny's beautiful daughter Sunny. That kid is all over the place, so asleep was perhaps the only possible pose:)

My painting from "The Fellowship of the Ring" where the hobbits encounter a Nazgul in the woods. My version is based more upon the scene from the movie which differs from the events in the novel.

Oil on Canvas 36"x48"

2002

Analytical cubism is best understood as the geometric dissection and analytical reconfiguration of a subject (busting an object into geometric shapes and visually pondering how they might be placed back together), utilizing multiple viewpoints within a single view framework (showing the back or side of an object while simultaneously portraying the front), blurring the interactive line of positive and negative space and interweaving these dimensions (obliterating the clear boundary or line between foreground and background), and or the poetic or lyrical representation of a subject. (paint what is interesting, ignore what is not).

In summary cubism is freedom. It is to traditional rendering as what jazz is to classical music. Louis Armstrong bounced around and about the linear structure of often simple tunes; hinting at musical phrases, toying with a familiar line of notes which all could recognize; creating something new, something different and powerful. Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso did the same with visual forms. They took what they wanted, discarded the rest, divided and recombined and wove a new vision of artistic reality. Of course they were led there by Cezanne’s geometric extrapolations of nature, Ingres’s reinvention of the anatomical form, and many, many others who also chose to create or embellish what they found in reality. 

This painting is my attempt at somewhat mimicking the mature style of Braque’s and Picasso’s analytical cubism. My main inspiration was Picasso’s cubist portrait of the art dealer Ambroise Vollard. It was very difficult for me to break away from a cubist style I had already developed on my own over many years of experimentation. My tendency to revert to that which I know abounds about the canvas. It was like dancing in someone else’s shoes; and I don‘t dance. The subject is the companion piece to my variation of Vermeer’s “The Artist’s Studio.” It is the finished cubist work the artist at the easel is working on in my studio painting. The title Chase is a double entendre; my chasing after a style so foreign yet so reminiscent of my own and quite wonderfully Chase happens to be the name of the girl who posed for me.

Eat me! Wait, don't eat me! Ok, you can eat me! 

The life of Pie.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 16"x20"

2004

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 22” x 28”

2018

This is my explanation for the meaning of this painting; a work so many  have asked about.

Once upon a time the most powerful archangel was Lucifer. For Lucifer loved God more than all others. When God created Man, God said unto all of the angels that they must bow to and serve Man and Woman; even before God. Lucifer could not abide being subservient to mud creatures such as these and refused God's request. As punishment God banished Lucifer from Heaven. Not being allowed in the presence of God became Lucifer's "Hell."

Lucifer is portrayed as a nude figure emerging out of the eye of God. Here I use it as a metaphor for an awakening of spirit and a transformative process from one reality to another. I believe in a continuously changing reality. What I was once is not what I am now. I have been in the presence of Love and I have been outside it. The crucifix with the watch represents our servitude to time, both in longevity of life and in the dominance we allow it over our existence. The Moon chases the Sun. The Sun represents our planet's future as bright and hopeful while the Moon shows a bleaker fate; one of a polluted, marked, and despoiled tomorrow. The city of liquor bottles illustrates our vice, whether chemical or material. The small three orbs represent the nature of infinity, standing for its importance of concept to me and to illustrate the cyclic nature of rebirth and change.

I painted this the year that St. Louis Cardinal’s Mark McGwire was on his way to breaking the New York Yankees’ Roger Maris’ 1961 single season home run record with 70 home runs. Even though it was exciting to follow McGwire’s tally and to watch his at bats replayed on the news every evening; the subsequent doping revelations with him, Barry Bonds, and others ultimately ruined the significance of some of the holiest records in the sport. I still consider Roger Maris’ record of 61 home runs to be the standing single season record.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

1998

This painting is based upon the Shroud of Turin. I have a profound love for the words and works of Jesus of Nazareth. I am often troubled by the manner with and by such cause that his name is provoked. I see and hear so many intolerant, vengeful, militaristic, materialistic, and hateful statements and acts perpetrated by people claiming to be devout Christians. Chesterton once said that "Christianity has not been tried and found wanting, but found difficult and left untried."

I was wearing this t-shirt design on the Metro in Madrid when I realized a man in the seat opposite me was staring at my chest. I had forgotten what image I was wearing. At the next stop a little boy got on with his parents. He took the seat next to me and within a few moments was asking his mother standing near for something from her purse. I realized that she was handing him a small crucifix which the child then held up to show me. The child then put the cross around his neck and smiled upon me.

Acrylic on Canvas 36” x 48”

I made this painting for my Mom. The only major compositional change I made was altering the female figure on the carriage to revel part of her face. But I worked from a Degas book I own and I believe the editors may have accidentally reversed the image. Also the picture from my book is much darker than the images I see online of this work.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 18" x 24"

I worked with Betsy at a pizza joint. Her last name was the same as my middle name so I felt we must be related somehow.

Working in the kitchen there was a guy named Beau. We recognized each other immediately but could never figure out where we knew each other from and our past histories had no commonalities whatsoever. We had never schooled, worked, or lived anywhere near each other until then. The oddest part was we remembered each other as having different hairstyles and wearing older type western clothes, like outlaws or riders of the old west. We were convinced we had met in another lifetime.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with Betsy:)

Oil on Canvas 16"x20"

This was one of the former students whom I would refer to as one of the “bright and shiny” people I often taught. So many of my students were so nice, so talented, intelligent, diligent, and so full of potential that they shined before my eyes. Of course for every single one of the shiny pupils, a child of diametrically opposed attributes also existed.

This work is presently unfinished, as am I.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 16'“ x 20”

Looking across the dance floor.

Acrylic on Canvas 24"x48" 

Acrylic on Canvas

1990

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

1996

Material Wealth

"I'll never understand this obsession with accumulating material wealth. You spend your entire life plotting and scheming to acquire more and more possessions until your living areas are bursting with useless junk. Then you die; your relatives sell everything and start the cycle all over again." Odo (Rene Auberjonois) from Deep Space Nine.

Do we possess our possessions or do they possess us.

Acrylic on Canvas

1990

Flower seed, birth of things. Sparkle baby laughter rings.

Walk talk, run bounding, learn want, search bumbling.

Fire burn ashes down, still, in you I am found.

Child is life to live. Mother holds gift to give.

Oil on Canvas 24” x 36”

This is my portrait of Mary and Porche, mother and child.

Like Abraham before me, I believe in but one God. Too often religion separates instead of unites. Why should God be accessible from only one path? Why must a person's faith in his or her salvation depend upon a trust in the failure of another's faith in his redemption? A Muslim or Christian or Hindu who is faithful to the beliefs of his family and heritage, who helps but hurts no other, and who bares no malice is a good person on a pathway towards Heaven. This would apply to a faithful and kind hearted Jew, Buddhist, Sciencetologist, and even Agnostic or Atheist. Faith is faith, good is good, charity, kindness, piety, morality, sympathy, empathy; we, as a common people of this planet are all united in these shared ideals of compassion. These are our joined beliefs that guide us along the pathways towards God, or Heaven, or Nirvana, or just a better world in which to live. God does not discriminate against religions or beliefs born and evolved from differing cultures. God is colorblind. God is culture blind. God is blind to religion.

Eat of my Nacho, my French Fry, my Tapas, my Nan, my Pita...like Abraham before me, I believe in but one God.

I created this portrait of my friend Michele's dachshund Chili for her baby shower; Michele’s…not the dog’s.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

I fell through an endless array of tea and cakes.

I want my cake and I want to eat it too. Or perhaps I want two cakes and I want to eat them both. Actually I want an infinite variety of cakes and I want to eat them all simultaneously.

Such is the mind of God.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 24"x30"

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

2011

On and off, for almost ten years I was with the woman I considered to be my soul mate. The last time we were together I had considered it to be the happiest time of my life. I was utterly and completely and madly in love. She loved yoga and was becoming very serious about meditation. She had decided to attend a Buddhist retreat called vipassana which was a ten day vegan meditation camp where she would meditate eight hours a day would not even speak the entire time. Before she went I decided to read the biography of Gotama Buddha and learn a little about the philosophy. I was troubled by its denial of earthly attachments and began to fear I might somehow lose her. She assured me my fears were unfounded and off she went to vipassana and then to her sister's place in Brooklyn for a short stay after the retreat. I was speaking to her on my cell phone right up to the moment she drove through the gate.

While she was gone I missed her and I worried. I even did a painting of her meditating in a Buddhist like pose. The tenth day passed and I waited for her to call. I knew she was going to her sister's and I did not want to intrude. The second day passed. On a third day I finally called her in New York and she answered her phone. She seemed as emotionally remote from me as she was geographically. When I told her I loved her she said nothing. I knew at that point that this person was not my soul mate and my heart broke.

When she got back home she went on and on how it was the happiest time of her life and how she could not wait to go back the following summer. She did not even want to be with me physically for the first two weeks she was back. And even though she again became the woman I loved within a few months; my heart had began to turn. I was still completely in love with her, but I was also beginning to hate her at the same time. Not returning my love and being told the happiest moments of her life were ones that I was not a part of tore me to pieces. We stayed together for almost a year after that. I could not let her go. But I could not stop my heart from continuing to turn. In the end I no longer even liked the way she smelled.

This painting is based on Edgar Allen Poe's poem "The Raven." I find it fitting that I had stretched the canvas overtop an old bed frame; even before I knew what I was going to paint.

Oil on Canvas 48” x 96”

1996

Billie was a student where I apprenticed as a teacher. She came to school one day with a black eye her sister had given her. I decided then to paint her sister as an angel. They lived with their father and both sported short haircuts which he had cut.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 11" x 14"

Jessica Doll

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas Board 11” x 14”

1999

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas Board 11” x 14”

1999

It is knowledge that feeds our minds. I look, with apprehension, upon the movement of anti-intellectualism growing within my nation, how all teachers, professors, and scientists are viewed not as discoverers and servants of truth and fact, but as enemies of the state with hidden and nefarious agendas. There are those who state with pride that their core ideas and values have never changed and yearn for the early days of the Constitution. They view those who speak of progress, our nation evolving forwards, and the Constitution as a living, breathing adaptable document to be opponents which must be stopped at all costs. Do these strict constructionists mean to say that in all of the years or decades of their lives they have learned nothing that might influence, revise, or alter ideas they have held since childhood? Do they actually believe that a document written two hundred and thirty years ago was somehow perfect in its inception? Who yearns for a return to the day of women not being allowed to vote and African Americans (slaves) being counted as worth three-fifths of whites for purposes of taxation? To not move forward is to be stagnant and will condemn us to sit and watch as the rest of the world rushes by until, ultimately, we are outdated and forgotten. Opinion has supplanted fact. It is knowledge and the pursuit of what is true, unbiased, and scientifically provable and teachable that will lead us towards bounty and tranquility. The answer is knowledge. Love your skull. Feed your head.

Acrylic on Canvas

A little boy named Brad lived next door to this house as a child. When he was four years old a little girl named Ro moved into this one. Now they are engaged to be married and live in this lovely home together. That is why I call this painting "The House of Ro."

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 16"x20"

2014

This is my painting of Spike the cat. Spike was sitting for me and I was thoroughly displeased with his pose and voiced my displeasure quite profusely. Upon hearing my complaints Spike shifted into this new position which I found to be aesthetically pleasing. When I was finished I informed Spike thusly and he promptly jumped off his posing chair to run off to do whatever the hell cats do when they are not modeling for artists. He never said "your welcome" but he probably figured it wasn't necessary since I was also the person who cleaned up his poop.

Acrylic on Canvas 11” x 14”

1995

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

2000

Portrait of friend’s children Dana and Peter. Peter is drawing a portrait from one of my paintings.

Oil on Canvas

Acrylic and Oli on Canvas

2005

Christine Uhl

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 24” x 48”

2001

This is my graphic creation of the word “Twist.” We live in a world of soundbites and pieces of information. People quite frequently take snippets or brief statements from what people have said or from text or verse and wildly twist and construe those words to their own purposes. I got the idea from a conversation with my ex-girlfriend.

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas

1996

I created this piece using a one inch square sponge brush I made from a floor scrub pad I bought at Home Depot. This painting was actually just a test piece for my Mona Lisa made with 6912 little squares; but I like it quite well nonetheless. I bought the frame at a garage sell for a dollar, thank you very much:)

Acrylic on Canvas 16"x20"

Oil on Canvas

1999

Acrylic and Oil on Canvas 24” x 48”

1999

Acrylic on Canvas

1990

Oil on Canvas 24” x 36”

1999

Oil on Canvas Board

1986

Oil on Canvas 16” x 20”

1996

Oil on Canvas 16” x 20”

1996