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. 

 I started this painting Saturday with a bright yellow background. While the frame portion came about almost immediately, the darker blues and pinks toward the top (originally the bottom) took a few hours to build up and, while I loved the effect, I wasn't sure where the painting was headed. 

​The frame added an obvious entry point for the viewer and a "stage" for the eventual subjects, but I didn't have a pose, figure, or subject matter in mind. To be honest, up until about 8PM Sunday, I thought this might end up as one of my rare abstract paintings. The flowery foliage and plant-life that has been dominating smaller-scale paintings as of late felt easy... lazy, and a figure hadn't emerged naturally quite yet. 

While the sun set on the second day of painting I began to contemplate figures I'd used in the past but was hesitant; I thought a gatherer would fit the scene well but my first try seemed to be bending backward rather than forward. Rather than cover it up and start over (I was feeling a bit impatient at the time) I decided to follow this unplanned thread and eventually found the figure on the right, reclined on a rock, seemingly sleeping but in a somewhat uncomfortable position. The figure to the left felt obvious after that. ​I added a staff to the reclining figure's hand and a narrative started to materialize.

"Guardians" jumped out in my mind; not a Marvel-esque triumph, but a more sarcastic tone. These two guards had fallen asleep on the job; trusted with the safety of whatever they oversaw, they had abandoned their post, or at least their responsibility, leaving what was to be protected to fend for itself. Further it seems that, upon waking, they are unconcerned with their predicament; perhaps unaware of the viewers gaze but also undisturbed, at least internally, with the failure of their duties. Guardians in name only it seems...

I did not start the painting as an intentional commentary on those in power or those taking it, nor did I plan to talk about guardians on veteran's day, but I suppose it's only appropriate that a painting about false leaders came about in the week following our most recent election.

Further, on this Veteran's Day, hopefully we can look to and remember those that actually gave their lives and sacrificed for our safety, rather than praise those looking only for attention and support while hoping we don't see what truly goes on behind the scenes. 

Guardians. In progress...just a few more hours to go.

Unless you've been living under a rock or ignoring me for the last year (nothing wrong with either) you already know  that, in-between pop-up shows, one-offs and small projects, I've been continuing my successful Natural Remedy series through paintings, a few murals, and some bigger proposals yet to find a home.

​But long before any of that and any art was actually made made, there was a proposal for a winter show at the Urban Ecology Center. 

The initial Natural Remedy showing was a small but successful affair, bringing in a few dozen people and energizing the space during the cold winter months of 2023. While a relatively brief stay, I immediately felt a jolt of inspiration when staring at their reclaimed wood wall and wanted to get more involved.

Thus the idea for "The Big Grid" was born. 

Field Notes was the odd man out from the rest of the series. Gridded and bit more based on the idea of journaling, it was meant to display "life" in a bit more regimented way than the rest of Natural Remedy. Where the others enveloped you in color and energy, Field Notes was a bit more contained, but carried it's own overwhelming sensibility.  Like information to be processed, Field Notes presented you with a wall of individuals, each deserving of its own moment rather than a storm of movement, color, and life. 

Despite its differences, Field Notes brought something unique to the series taht I wanted to continue...and do so at a large scale. Rather than paint something purely for my own enjoyment (not to mention the fact that a "field notes" type of painting takes FOREVER), I decided to pitch the concept to the Urban Ecology Center as a permanent installation. The rest is history...or will be this Friday.

The painting we had on our bedroom wall went up for a show and we lasted about a day before we knew it needed to more art. 

Sure we could have gone into the storage unit and chosen from a few thousand options from the last decade but where's the fun in that? It's our house...what better opportunity for a mural?!

I started with my typical automatic drawing inspired approach...Don't think, just make a few marks and let the brush lead the way. 

I think a break is essential in a lot of artwork. I work in spurts, finding inspiration naturally and riding the wave until my energy or attention subsides. My comfort with the first phase of the mural was probably more of a lack of interest than a feeling of finality, and I also was wary of overdoing it, which can be easy when in automatic-drawing mode...Overall I think it came out great and I'm excited to grow with it as a new addition to the family. 

Tonight's the night! The 15th Anniversary edition of Indiana Green opens to the public at 6PM at the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts. I'll have one painting on view alongside a slew of local and area artists in a fantastic survey of contemporary art in the region. 

Indiana Green holds a special place in my heart as one of the first "big" shows I was involved with after getting to Milwaukee. I hope you can come out to the opening or make it to the show before it comes down in September. 

I'll be showing a painting from March of 2024, Island; Garden; Oasis; Eden. an interesting period in my painting from the last year and part of the reason why I thought it was a good choice for the Indiana Green.
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This painting was created in the month following the first batch of paintings for the Natural Remedy series which has turned out to be one-of-if-not-THE most successful series I've ever done (buy one today!). I love the art that's come from that series but anyone that looks at it can see a distinct difference in style from the art I had been producing, specifically the more painterly large scale art such as the Pandemic Painting series. I've always varied my styles and techniques, making sure I never stick with one thing too long, but the Natural Remedy series was a level of focus and intention that I hadn't employed much in my painting before.

That's probably a good thing...and it's resulted in more consistent sales than I've ever seen (yay) but it also led me to a point where, once the series was "done", I had to come up with something else. Now, in my studio a series is never really done. I'm always thinking of ways to extend or expand upon what I've done before, but I wanted to "stop" at least for a bit, and remove the approach that had become somewhat formulaic at that point. I think the paintings from Natural Remedy were still high-quality, but after so many it can feel a little monotonous or lazy to keep doing one thing, even if successful.

Island; Garden; Oasis; Eden. was a return to more painterly techniques and some tropes from the Pandemic Painting era of work.  

Another aspect of this painting that exemplifies some of my common trends is the title. Island; Garden; Oasis; Eden. on it's face indicates that the painting is about paradise. Islands, gardens, oasis and Eden are all words used to describe beautiful and desirable locations. However, they also carry some baggage: Eden, while a paradise, was forbidden; An island, while potentially beautiful, is also isolated and no one wants to be deserted on an island; an Oasis, similarly, carries a dichotomy of being desirable, but also requiring being surrounded by a desert. Paired with the intangible unease of of the scene, the painting and title seem to question whether this things truly are the paradise they originally appear to be.