If people could see properly, and see whole, they would all be painters. — Pierre Bonnard Since childhood, I have longed to see the way the Tonalists saw; the way the Impressionists saw; the way the Ashcan and London and Pop painters saw. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I...
I invite you to grab your sweetheart, don your mask, and come see my exhibit of original oil paintings for sale at the Center for the Creative Arts' Annual Artisan Show, next Saturday, November 20, and Sunday, November 21. At the event—a weekend marketplace for fine art and...
Perhaps the sketch of a work is so pleasing because everyone can finish it as he chooses. — Eugene Delacroix For nine years in a row, I attended a public school in New Jersey named Washington Elementary. Every classroom sported a framed print of Gilbert Stuart's famous unfinished...
For us, there is only the trying. The rest is not our business. — T.S. Eliot Businesspeople are always citing Voltaire's advice, "Don't let the perfect be the enemy of the good." They know you'll never earn a profit, if you do. I wish more painters felt that way. Instead,...
New mysteries. New day. Fresh doughnuts. — David Lynch Is it any wonder we love doughnuts? Without beginning or end, they symbolize eternity, while we mortals know only finitude. Not to mention they're tasty. We can thank the Dutch not only for the still life, but the doughnut, too. They...
In February, the Newark Arts Alliance will host Cold Comforts, my very first solo show. The paintings in the show will center on the theme of "food as consolation."* I'm delighted the Alliance elected to host Cold Comforts and glad for the boost it will give to...
Everything is broken. — Bob Dylan Philosopher Bernard Stiegler calls ours The Age of Disruption. Everything is broken. That insight is perhaps what lures me to the movement known as Disrupted Realism. Disrupted Realism, which embraces the idea that "the power of chaos rivals the power of order," has deep art-historic...
All you have to do is show up. — Constantine Brancusi My worst enemy is indolence. You could call it my favorite hobby. Writer Ernest Hemingway famously beat indolence by leaving his last sentence unfinished every night. Sculptor Constantine Brancusi beat it by arriving early at his studio in the mornings...
Happiness lies in the joy of achievement and the thrill of creative effort. — Franklin D. Roosevelt On Saturday, I had the distinct pleasure of painting en plein air outside the studio of N.C. Wyeth in Chadds Ford, Pennsylvania, under the guidance of my realism teacher, Randall Graham. The afternoon was warm,...
Inspiration is for amateurs. — Chuck Close Old objects and the personal memories associated with them inspire most of my paintings. I'm content to call it nostalgia. Like weight-gain, nostalgia is an affliction of the aged and can rapidly get out of hand. I especially loathe the kind that...