I've always had a fascination with abandoned buildings. I'm not an urban explorer by any means, but whenever I travel along the highways, interstates, or through rural areas you'll find me craning my neck to spy the corner of some mysterious farmhouse or collapsed barn. There's a wonder and haunting beauty to decaying structures and I often find myself imagining past owners, past lives, and the endless scenarios that never happened. Growing up in a 100+ yr old house brought a sense of pride and, even as a college student, I loved the occasional art show in run-down warehouses, sneaking off during the openings to explore, and peering down elevator shafts and hallways while music blared a few rooms over. Most any structure is interesting but while I was setting up GOOD AIR and travelling to and from Fond du Lac for a few days I was reintroduced to a favorite.

​The Green Valley Motel sits just south of Fond du Lac off highway 41. While overgrown in the summer and much harder to spot, thinning trees make it hard to miss, especially with its derelict green sign. I honestly have no idea when it was built, how long it was open, how long it's sat unused, or if it serves a purpose to this day, but every pass heightens the mystery and intrigue. After three days I just couldn't get it out of my head. 

As with most of my art, the intention is not a photo-realistic representation. Even a physical likeness isn't necessary...but a few weeks following the setup I finally got started on The Green Valley Motel.

Right off the bat there's a few things I need to work on. I would like more foliage and a more claustrophobic effect. I want the motel to emerge from the greenery rather than stand like a monolith. I also would like a pastier green. Jewel tones are great, but there's something about that sign I need to come through in the final painting. I've considered adding a sign, but I think I need to get the color right on the building before exploring that route.

Pictures from the Forgotten Wisconsin facebook page.

I think the best series are those you don't really intend to start. They arise organically when you naturally find something new to explore. It's not that you have multiple takes on one idea, it's that one idea spawns the ability to riff almost endlessly.

I've done hundreds of small-scale landscape drawings, each a meandering discovery as one mark leads to the next. It's my go-to when I want to make something, but don't want to START something big. I usually refer to it as doodling, much like I would have during grade-school (all school really) but with a fine-art flair. 

I took a few days off from my day job for setup and though it sometimes felt a bit like I was cosplaying as a professional artist, I loved every minute of it. From digging through piles of paintings, to sore fingers from endless stretching...even getting some knee-wobbles at the top of the ladder was something that made the setup feel like I was doing something beyond the confines of my personal studio. I'll admit, the entire time I wished I had a blank canvas available to doodle on, but this was real and measurable; art in action, so to speak.

The hardest part was realizing I couldn't leave it like that and, eventually, I had to roll them all back up after installation was complete. It's this constant juxtaposition of elation and resignation that exemplifies the struggles of being a dedicated artist without a ton of return to show for it. Passion, energy, and belief are quickly followed by doubt, all of which are eventually overwhelmed by the compulsion to cover another canvas. Rinse, repeat and before you know it you're waiting for another opening with the same daydreams and fears buzzing through your mind a month, a year, ten years down the road... 

Made two paintings after the namesake of the new show, Good Air, Sat Like A Stone has always served as it's opposing companion.

Similar in size and composition, where Good Air is light, open, and hopeful, Sat Like a Stone is dark, heavy, and foreboding. Where the figures in Good Air have life and movement, the figures in Sat Like a Stone are cold and stoic. Even the landscape is dark and abstract, with just a ring of red representing the sun, or moon. 

Is this an eclipse? Armageddon? The remains following the rapture? The power in this painting, especially in comparison to good air, is in it's monolithic weight, overwhelming darkness, and bone-chilling cold. Whatever the circumstance, we can all remember a time there was nothing to do but curl up and shiver.

This very well might be my favorite of the series. It established a new level of darkness that I don't think I had ever explored before and the gaze of the central figure has stuck with me ever since its creation. I chased the feeling of this painting most of the rest of the series, mostly with solid results, but I'm not sure anything quite made it back to this level of success, simplicity and starkness.

I think this encompasses the overall melancholy of the lockdowns well. Once fear subsided we were left adrift; the world didn't stop but much of what we considered important did. Social events were canceled, friends were dangerous, even being outside was discouraged by some. The people we once relied on drifted into a digital landscape and we were left working alone, staring at screens, all while people insisted we were in this together. 

I feel a bit like a broken record, but I guess I'm a fan of my art; this has always been a favorite from the series and think it stands out both because of its size (54x62) and, like Sharing Lunch, due to its relative simplicity. The figures came together without fuss; the setting sparse; the overall atmosphere was immediately enchanting.

Though it wasn't included in the first show at MARN, Good Air is the namesake of the second showing of the collection and, in my opinion, a standout member of the series. The texture within the color blocks seen up close counters the overall emptiness when viewed from afar and the minimal but emotive figures create just enough interaction and tension to develop a narrative. At a time when my horizons were confined to a 10x20' room, Good Air truly brought a fresh breath of it.

Don't get me wrong...I love the Natural Remedy series, but after hours and hours and hours of plants, symbols, and minute details my brain needed a break...or rather a return to my more typical subject matter: the figure.

It's not necessarily easy to change gears. If you're familiar with how I paint, it usually comes naturally and unplanned. I'll start with a vague idea or concept, but the specifics all come about on their own. When you've been doing the same thing for months, your muscle memory takes over whether or not you want it to. 

Summer Dance came from this struggle. I wanted something that was energetic and vibrant but i needed to avoid foliage as much as possible. It was just starting to feel lazy. I started with some similar shapes but rather than leaves or petals these became torsos, legs and hips.

To counter the spastic energy of NatRem while keeping a liveliness of its own I went with repetition. This brings the focus to the human form and provides movement in a way that contrasts the chaos of Natural Remedy. It also gave me a focus from early on; something concrete to grab hold of; rather than wondering if it would eventually come together. I focused on keeping the canvas wet to remove a bit of control. Colors mix, edges blur; all the stuff that didn't happen when working with acrylic pens for NatRem.

I don't usually start a painting with a plan in mind. Usually there's a goal, but it's something more abstract or compositional in nature; I want to make something red; I want a large central figure; I want to paint a square canvas...Whether or not the painting accomplishes that initial goal is entirely dependent on the resulting studio sessions, organic development and unplanned intricacies, but that's how I usually dive in.

​This painting started with a plan, but was quickly derailed by another image stuck in my mind. The original plan was to do an interior scene based on some recent home improvement we've been doing, namely repainting a few walls with an accent color of golden yellow. It is striking and quickly becoming one of the favorite views inside my house. However, when I got this canvas started, I ran out of yellow about half-way through. The background ended up being subtle variations of oranges and yellows, but it wasn't the solid color I was hoping for. It didn't have the same presence. It wasn't going to work.

Earlier in the week I had seen the painting above by NC Wyeth. I was struck by the repetition of the birds, fish, boats and figures, and enjoyed the contrast between the black water and subjects. The problem was I didn't have a square canvas, so I shelved the idea for later and started the yellow interior...but I couldn't get the fish out of my mind. After a few hours of staring at a yellow background I realized it just wasn't what I intended for the yellow interior...and while I wanted to do a larger square painting for my tribute to the Wyeth I figured that discrepancy  was easier to resolve than the total lack of the color essential to the original idea. Once I accepted that the yellow interior needed, well, yellow, I quit questioning my instincts and painted three red boats.  I added a dock to the left of the canvas that somewhat squared off the main scene and worked two figures amongst the silhouettes of boats. 

It took a number of hours and a few repaints to figure out how I wanted the fish to look, but once a form was found the bottom two boats came together quickly. While adding in eyes I realized the fish and boats took pretty much the same form, and the idea struck to turn the third, top boat into a larger fish with the inclusion of a large eye and netting at the rear. Not only did this add a surreal quality to the overall scene but created a sense of narrative and wonder for the viewer to latch onto; something larger must be at play than a simple depiction of laborers unloading their catch.

The last aspect to be finished was the lower right figure. I have always struggled with adding a detail to my figures (part of the reason I've adopted this "scuba-esque" representation for humans) as I don't want people to get distracted by unintended connections. I wanted this figure to be timeless and stoic but meet the viewers gaze to establish an interaction between the two. What that interaction means, I hope, is built by the viewer and their personal interpretation of the scene overall.