Watermelon Girl 6/28/08

Continuing to update this work in progress. It's a bit scary right now but don't declair me a madman just yet!!

oil on canvas
50 x 60

Hang Glider Painting 1980

A pair of wedge shaped canvass' put together to form this 2' x 8' wedge. It is an illustration of the rate of descent of the two basic types of hang gliders in use in 1980. Paragliding had yet to be invented1

Watermelon Girl 6/25/08

Watermelon Girl continues...............

More Word Painting from the Archives

GAME PLAN (Ping Pong Green) 1978
Using paint color from a can called "Ping Pong Green" which was really the inspiration for this piece, I constructed stretchers that created a window into the canvas where I ran a small section of ping pong table netting for this painting abvout games and rules and strategy in competition.

40 x 48
rubberized playing table paint, acrylic and spray paint on canvas
1979

Watermelon Girl 6/22/08

Now she's coming along!

oil on canvas in progress
60 x 50

Gimmik Painting 1979

Title says it all!
This image doesn't adequatly show the rotation of the dayglow paint color flags attached to an electric clock motor that rotate every 15 seconds or so.
Other gimickery includes painting on the reverse side of multiple layers of plexiglass with irredescent paints, and of course the phonetic spelling of the word gimmick itself (though perhaps I should have used only one M in that case) At the time of this piece I had a philosophical opposition to any kind of illusion in my work as well and included a nod towards perspective as another gimmick in this piece. As a final gesture to throw this piece over the top, I signed it in the lower right corner "Art" Sadly the electric motor no longer works. I do not know if that can be restored

Road Test 1979

Second of several paintngs that explored language, the first being the previously posted "Surface Painting" These involved single point conceptual ideas with every possible link that I could think of wrapped into the excution. Road Test was a study of the asphalt and how it's used and what I actually found there. The canvas is stretched on bars in the shape of a road in perspective with related text and items actually found in the street fixed to the canvas, including dirt.

Watermelon Girl 6/16/08

A new work just begun. Just sticks so far! I share my studio with my artist wife, Georgeann. Those are her canvass' on the wall in the background.

50 x 60
no oil or canvas yet!

Magic 8 Ball Fortune Telling Game, and Santiam Classic Fancy Cut Green Beans

The idea here was a burned out stand of trees

45 x 50
oil on canvas
2007

Brian Eno : Before and After Science

ground

Creating an image of a clear cut forest and living here in the Northwest proved to be an educational experience for me. I envisioned a painting of a road cutting through my UPC trees and was half finished before even taking on the idea of what the background ought to be. I thought first of painting in a forest backdrop into which the bar code trees would simply melt, but soon realised that in the real world here in Northwestern Oregon there is a setting where it is quite common for a treeline to flank both sides of the roadway in an otherwise barren landscape. This is how the land has been traditionally clearcut here, stripped of all vegetation except along the sides of the roads, so that the tourists passing through don't get too upset by the devastation, and go home to write their congressman with environmental concearns. While I was simply seeking a logical visual solution for the background of my painting, I stumbled upon a politically charged image, and many viewers of this painting were more interested in my political stance than in my compositional concerns. In the end the painting was purchased by a collector who was most interested in it's connection to Brian Eno's record from 1978, which had provided me with both a bar code for the composition of my lovely stand of trees, and the seemingly random set of numbers across the bottom of the composition.


45 x 60
oil on canvas
2006

Beggar Dog Bisquits!!

Well, in the beginning at least, my crafting of landscapes from the compositional outlines presented from UPC codes seemed to evoke a sense of humor and absurdity in my work and in this piece I strove to pursue that to a kind of extreme. My favourite restaurent in Los Angeles was a mexican food establishment famous for its hip late night clientele, brown sauce that I was warned to avoid, and dangerous margueritas. They also had a wonderful collection of paintings of Mexican villages rendered on black velvet and little electric lights lighting up all the tiny cottages represented therein. With this painting I tried to capture some of that over the top yet sincere kitsch that I found in those paintings. Abandoning my usual bag of tricks in the pursuit of the perfect brush stroke, I went shopping at the local Michaels craft store, and the nearby fabric store for a full pallete of iredescent fabrics, puff balls, sequins, plastic pearls and puffy paint, and working on a beautifully stretched piece of black velvet with gold metal leaf, this image was born. My friend Vanessa did not approve! Perhaps one day she will reconsider.

The Portrait Of Door E (In Grey)

Another example of my early object based pieces. A bad pun I'm afraid. I enjoy putting these out there. Hope I'm not the only one!

1978
acrylic on canvas with brass letter "E" and knob
32 x 80

Freemont Bridge at Dawn

Here is my final work so far involving the archetecture of infrastructure in the city of Portland. I realized that I've finished up with the series of paintings that I did for the Buckman School Art Show and Sell, but along the lines of the Show and Sell, this painting was made specifically for a fundraiser - a failed attempt by the Portland Art Center (PAC), to raise enough extra cash to keep it's doors open. The show was called "PDX Panels" The Art Center passed out 300 30 x 30 plywood panels to area artists to work with however they wanted. I followed the basic formula that I used for the Show and Sell, choosing to work from a photo of a familiar Portland landmark. I gave myself no time limitation for this painting, and therefore allowed myself to give it a more polished finish and plenty of artistic license in the sky, which was purely creative fabrication. A friend noted the similarity in the sky to Munch's painting "The Scream" Not intentional, but perhaps subconciously, my knowlege of art history leaks into my work occaisonally?

2007
oil on plywood
30 x 30

Under I-5

The archetecture of the freeway structure on the east side approach to the Marquam Bridge created some interesting compositional elements. This view is looking north from somewhere near Salmon Street on the east bank of the Willamette River.

8 x 10
oil on panel
2004

The Man in the Malt 1977

This is where it all started. As a teenager in the 1970's painting held a less than prestigious place in my conciousness. I learned about what was cool from my peers in high school. This would have been airbrushed artwork on the sides of vans and post hippie album artwork by illustrators like Roger Dean and his numerous psudo surreal album covers and caligraphy for the prog-rock band Yes. I also learned that Dali was cool but neither me nor my friends knew anything about any other surrealists, or art history. The only other major modern artist who's name was familiar to me was Pablo Picasso, and he was not understood, and therefore reviled among my peer group and family members. I had little interest in art as I knew it then. Through an inspired painting teacher at the age of 17 who gave us a taste of the history of modernism through painting exercises in the style of the modern masters, from Monet and Impressionism, through Picasso and abstraction, I learned the language of paint and found that I was powerfully drawn to learn to speak it. One and a half years later I had learned enough to concieve and execute this painting which was completed in the first week of January, 1977. This was my first major work of art and the beginning of my self awarness as an artist. The assignment was open ended exploratoin into photo realism, as the final for a life painting class. My subject was my close friend, life long companion in the High Sierra, and spirit guide, Don Flaherty, who had shocked us all in 1975 or 1976 by, for health reasons, eliminating sugar and processed foods from his diet. I chose this painting as a humerous and ironic way to do his portrait. I learned much about the spirit in painting and the magic of the touch of the brush to the canvas, and about color and form and contrast in the following 31 years, but I've never made a better work of art!

oil on canvas
48 x 72

Steel Bridge, Portland OR

2004
oil on panel
9 x 12

East Salmon Street from the Esplanade

2004
oil on panel
8 x 10

Burnside Bridge, from the Steel Bridge pedestrian walkway

This one is owned by my friend Scott Moore. He was an organizer of the Buckman School Art Show and Sell and we made a trade. I got one of his skateboards. Check out his site, it's the Subsonic Skateboard link!

Also, check back to the May 5 post for the full installation view of the Alpine Lake Triptych!

ciao

Downtown Portland

This view from just south of Riverplace and the Hawthorn Bridge is no longer possible as a high rise condominium has gone up in the spot where I stood to take the photograph from which this sketch was painted. The boardwalk at Riverplace is one of my favourite places to hang out with a beer or glass of red wine on warm sunny Portland Summer afternoons.

2004
oil on panel
10 x 20