Seaside

New Painting.........This is a piece from our trip to Nantucket last fall. 8.5"x 10.5" The light and the surf were amazing. Many a piece will come from those few days there.

Southbound

5 1/8"x 7"..........All of a sudden, I am into trains. At least the tracks anyway. I have always loved the south. Its a place of dreams and of rich and diverse history. When I am here, I always feel like I am home. Was listening to the Allman Brothers while painting this. Seems appropriate. They were and are southern boys from Macon, Georgia. Duane has been gone a long time, but Greg Allman now lives in Savannah, one of my favorite places in the whole world. This one goes out to you my sweet, Georgia town.............."Oh, Lordy I'm southbound. I'm coming home to you"................................

Florida Contemporary

The third annual edition of the popular Naples Museum of Art Invitational exhibition opens today in Naples, FL. I was asked to include one of my paintings and Helene von Bueren was kind enough to let them use Santee, which was purchased through Arcadia in NY.

From realism to abstraction (and everything in between), Florida Contemporary 2011 will feature familiar photographers, painters, sculptors and graphic artists who have spent a lifetime at their craft together with an exciting array of new artists that visitors can “discover” for themselves. While not an all-inclusive record of current exhibiting Florida artists, this exhibition provides an intriguing impression of the innovative images, subject matter, techniques and mediums that exemplify the art being created in the state today. http://thephil.org/museum/museum_exhibitions/11-FloridaContemporary.html

It's not dark yet, but it's getting there.

Here is a new painting I just finished. It's called "Home before Dark". 7 3/4"x 9" on wood panel. I think I am going to do a few more on this theme. This could be anyone waiting for someone to come home. I like the point of view of a parent waiting for their child to come home. There is always worry. The light is on for them and it is nearly dark........

The Visitor

The next piece in the series. I have called it The Visitor. It's title again refers to the transitory nature of things. We are here but a brief time and then just a memory. It is an actual place as well. You are looking down the tracks in Winter Park, FL. On the left is the Winter Park Historical Society and Farmers Market and on the right is the actual Visitor's Center for the City of Winter Park. This painting will be going to Dallas for the Dallas Art Fair and showing with Tanner Hill Gallery. It is 7 1/8"x 9 1/8" on wood.

New Direction

I have been painting for many years now and I wanted to start moving beyond just pieces that were beauty for beauty's sake. I am sure it has to do with getting older. I notice the temporary or transitory nature of things. It seems melancholy but it is the most real thing there is. We are only here a little while.

Hurricane Katrina came ashore near Waveland, MS. I wanted to see it right after, but only managed to get there 5 years later. Last summer, coming back from Denver, I stopped by. It was early in the morning, just as the sun was rising. It was dead calm. I made my way directly to the beach and as I got closer the homes began to disappear. On the shoreline, where once many large and beautiful mansions sat, now appeared to be a park. Nature had taken back the land. It was extraordinary. My painting is looking east. The gulf is on the right. The beach line had clearly been altered and a temporary road through the sand was made. On the left there was only a few signs of what once was, in terms of people. The trees mostly survived the storm and were thick. Grasses were tall and lush. It really did look natural. Nature does what it does. It doesn't know we are there and doesn't care.Without the human markers its not really a disaster at all. And yet there were many signs along the road we were moving back in, although slowly.

My first notion, in terms of a painting, in human terms, was to make the tragic look beautiful. Retain the idea of a Hudson River School painting. Have all of those elements there. I think I did that. But make it clear life is temporary. We are always in transition of some kind. The painting has a driveway, broken docks leading out into the gulf, and a fence from a prior home. There is a Port a potty that represents that lack of permanence. Seems to me a perfect object for that. The streetlights represent time for me. Time is something I think about alot. There is no past. There is no future. There is only the present. Now. Everything exits in the present. The past exists only in our memory. Regardless of age, all things are in the present. The universe does not keep time. It just is.

God's Country

This is a painting I just finished. 10"x 10", oil on wood. It is the same creek as in "Low Country", but from a slightly different view. I have since made a few adjustments to this. I made the mud area in the left foreground a little less red and it seemed to help. It's an area of South Carolina. I love the South. I love driving around a finding new things. It's the discovery for me that gets me excited. There is so much history, so much beauty to be found on the back roads. The real America is there. It's God's Country.