It is better to be fervent in spirit, even if one accordingly makes more mistakes, than narrow-minded and overly cautious. — Vincent Van Gogh It's juvenile to think so, but a fortune cookie has provided my new mantra. I paint for the most part alla prima in oil,...
I have to work constantly, but not in order to arrive at the finish, which attracts the admiration of imbeciles. I must strive to complete only for the satisfaction of becoming truer and wiser. — Paul Cezanne One of my teachers used Cezanne's Still Life with Water...
We all lean toward prolixity. — Samuel Butler I'm putting into conscious practice Harold Speed's advice to "leave out the details" and go for a "large and simple statement." (Speed's is identical to John Singer Sargent's advice to "omit all but the most essential elements.") And so serendipity...
Art—and the outdoors—are calling! Look for my outdoor exhibit at Art Fest at Whitehall, Sunday, April 25, noon-4 pm. It's your chance to save sales tax and shipping on every one of my paintings. The festival features live music, fun food, and exhibits by more than 100 regional...
The past isn't dead. It isn't even past. — William Faulkner I love to paint stoneware crocks. Their chunky, chilly corporality reminds me of granite markers and monuments, the steadfast avatars of past lives. And their rootedness in the earth—crocks being made of dirt, a literal rootedness—lend them...
Whatever the objects of his attention, the painter will not make them say what they are without thereby learning what he is. — Jean-Paul Sartre Just when I think I've about had it with party strife, microbes, blizzards, intolerance and inequality, painting comes along to pick me up. Still-life...
Creativity takes what it needs from the person who possesses it and discards the rest. — Peter Schjeldahl New Yorker art critic Peter Schjeldahl once observed that, for viewers, subject and medium always transcend a painter's thoughts and feelings. I think that's why, after just a few weeks,...
Painting is another way of keeping a diary. — Pablo Picasso I dashed off Social Distancing last March, the morning I realized Covid-19 was not just some flu, but "really real." Since that morning ten months ago, 389,000 Americans have died of the virus, including a close family...
Others have no data for computing our orbit other than our past acts. — Ralph Waldo Emerson Twenty years ago, a business coach recommended I read the now out-of-print Nichecraft. The book convinced me to specialize—a lesson I've carried with me into my move into professional painting. Specializing...