Artist Talk! August 22 at 3PM in the Haley-Henman Gallery

I’ll be giving my artist talk for the Haley-Henman show on Sunday August 22nd at 3PM. What to expect at an art talk like this? Well, for all intents and purposes the gallery is closed except for people attending the talk which makes it a much more relaxed atmosphere, just a few people sitting around have a conversation, and since the gallery is mostly empty it gives a great oppurtunity to see all of the art that is on display. It is going to be a lot of fun, and I would love it if you can join me. Here is the address for the gallery:

My Friend Terry

This is a painting I just started today, but it is one that I have wanted to do since I began painting. The painting will be a music painting, all of the colors of the painting will come from Hot Chip’s song  Colours, and will be included in my Poetry of the Senses series that will be showing at Haley-Henman in a few weeks. The figure in the painting is of a good friend I had back when I was a kid and was in and out of hospitals a lot. I have tried to paint him before, but have always failed. Terry was an amazing person, and I think it must have bothered me more than I even realized the fact that I lived while he passed away at such a young age. I suppose I have always felt a little guilty because of that; we were the same age, but just as his life was coming to an end mine was beginning. I have always been blocked when it came to trying to paint him, but instead of thinking about what he may have missed out on life; I instead chose to focus on the type of person he was, and finally this seems  to have freed me up enough for me to begin painting my friend. This painting is still very much in the beginning stages; I will post more pics as the painting develops.

Wood Working Blind

Video – So far I still have ten fingers; so I feel pretty good about that. I like to be hands on with every aspect of my art, and that includes stretching my own canvas, cutting the supports for those, and also cutting and shaping the wooden panels that I paint on when I chose to paint on wood. In the video I show a few of the tools that I use, and how I measure and cut the wood. It’s a short video, but it was a lot of fun to make with Jacqi and Jack!

Hint: If you have trouble with the video playing; just click on it and it will take you to YouTube where it should play more smoothly.

Overlooked Artists: Bob Ross

Bob Ross was not always surrounded by happy trees and lazy clouds. He spent 10 years in the U.S. Air Force where apparently he screamed enough for a lifetime because he vowed when he left the service that he would never yell again. Apparently Ross is a man that keeps his promises because I can’t imagine the afroed man from my youth who was always showing videos of the animals he rescued near his home as ever screaming. Ross is known for his PBS painting show, but what few people know is that he donated all of those shows free of charge to the PBS stations along with the paintings that he created on the show to help lend them support.

After doing the TV show for awhile Ross began a successful art instruction business where he sold books and painting supplies. The quick painting style that he is known for comes from his need to begin and complete a painting during his daily breaks while serving in the Air Force. I believe that Ross’s major contribution as an artist ironically wasn’t his paintings, but instead in inspiring others to take up the brush and begin painting themselves. Critics tend to judge Ross on the basis of his completed paintings, but seldom take into account his objective and reasoning for painting the way in which he did. Ross’s goal was not to bring great art to people by he himself creating a master piece, but for people to experience art for themselves by actually getting their hands dirty and getting involved.

Ross brought art to many people that never had exposure to art instruction before. Critics of his instructional methods sometimes call it a dead end in that you only learn to paint like Ross, and that this may curtail you finding your own artistic voice. I believe that this is equally true of any painting system or instruction whether it is from a university, book or video that offers a ‘way’ to learn how to paint. Ross succeeded in generating an interest in art from a huge group of people, and I believe the obligation lies with every student to decide the direction in which they need to grow. Ross offered a starting point in the arts for many that never would have known where to begin. I personaly don’t use Ross’s techniques – they just don’t fit in very well with the way that I paint, but I have to admire the passion that he had for art that inspired so many to pick up a brush.

Overlooked Artists: Norman Rockwell

If you are an artist and people all over the world know your name, and you have millions of fans then you would think that at the very least you would be viewed as a serious artist. I mean how many contemporary artists can the average person even name anymore. It is a strange phenomenon, this success without critical recognition, but there are two contemporary painters that personify this strange occurrence, and I will talk about them both in this two-part blog.

Norman Rockwell is a household name, and considered to be a great painter by almost everyone excluding of course art critics, and perhaps even himself. If you asked Rockwell what he was he would most likely say that he was an illustrator, as he rarely called himself a painter. I think that this may stem from his military service in the U.S. Navy during WWI where he served as a military artist – not a job that he particularly wanted. The military rejected him at first, because standing at six feet tall and weighing 140 pounds he was considered underweight and unfit for service. He spent the night eating and drinking as much as he could, gorging until he finally weighed enough to be admitted. He wanted to see action, but the Navy decided they needed an artist more than another soldier so they told him to put away his rifle and to take out his brushes.

I believe this experience molded his painting style thereafter because in his work as a military artist the ability to capture both detail and mood was extremely important - both of these characteristics become defining elements of his work after the war.  His way to contribute to his fellow soldiers was to give them an image that they could relate to; paintings that would both inspire and comfort them when they went into battle. When an artist tries to anticipate the tastes and preferences of his audience it is often considered pandering – I think in Rockwell’s case it is comes closer to patriotism. He wasn’t allowed to fight so instead he poured himself into his art, and tried to contribute in the only way he could. He sublimated his own artistic expression at times with what he felt his audience needed to see.

You can see this most clearly with the paintings that he did for himself alone; they are very different and often much darker and more somber than anything ever printed in the publications that published his work. This was a tumultuous time in our history because after WWI there was the Great Depression and following that of course WWII, Korea, the Civil rights struggle, and Vietnam – not to mention the ongoing cold war. I feel that when Rockwell left military service he saw a need from the American public that was very similar to what his fellow soldiers had required. The country needed the comfort that a certain nostalgia offered, to see that change (as depicted in his civil rights paintings) did not have to be forbidding, and that it was actually a good thing. I believe that Rockwell’s true art was not his paintings, but in the way that he connected with his audience to deliver the messages that he wanted to send. He had to get people to look before they could hear what he was saying, and ironically it is this very connection with his audience that critics often seem to view as unprofessional.

ArtBreak – Blindfolded Painting Workshop

VIDEO – Jacqi and I conducted a painting while bllndfolded workshop at ArtBreak in Shreveport, LA.  where we painted with hundreds of kids over three days. This event is unique in that it involves all of the children in the city in a week long art exhbition. We had a blast!

Countdown to Haley-Henman 2

VIDEO: In this video i’m showing some of the paintings that I am currently working on for the show, and thinking about the direction I need to go for the next few. Also, I’m pretty sure it’s April 27th everywhere not just in Texas – it might be bad form to heckle your own videos, but hey you’ve got to do what you’ve got to do.

Countdown to Haley-Henman!

VIDEO: If you have any comments or suggestions please let me know – this is a real time video blog that will end on July 31st this year at the art show – so if you see something you like or don’t like let me know; your comments will be heard. This blog is a countdown to the Haley-Henman Gallery show in Dallas. I am getting ready for the Haley-Henman summer show and I will be covering every aspect of the preparation – painting the works, selecting pieces that are going into the show, writing artist statements and press releases – everything! Your comments will be very much appreciated because this is most definitely a work in progress!

Thank You

Things have been tight all over; a lot of very experienced and well established artists have had to scale back their painting, and some have even hung up their brushes. I feel lucky because I am actually doing more of everything – workshops, demonstrations, lectures, painting, and it is completely due to the people that have been so supportive of my work. Things are tight of course, they are for most everyone, but I have been able to keep working towards my dream. I don’t know how it is for other artists, but the people that are interested in my art are a tenacious bunch. I put so much of myself into my art; it seems like when someone connects with it they are actually connecting with me as well – at least I like to think so; I guess I’m saying that it makes me feel connected, and that is a good feeling to have.

When I say support I don’t just mean the purchasing of my art, which of course is always a special event for me, but it is the positive energy and feelings that I receive through email and talking with people. Art is a visceral thing for me – it is not only the way that I express myself, but it is also the way that I have come to see the world. I don’t have the luxury or even the inclination to ever stop painting. It would be like a sighted person saying something like, “I not going to see today, I mean I saw all day yesterday – I’m tired of it.” That just sounds silly. Painting for me has become the way in which I know the world; I never feel quite as connected as when I have a paintbrush in my hand. I feel a person’s face – I see them in my mind, and then I try and recreate that image as clearly as I can in paint. For me, it is more than a means of seeing a person – it is more like I come to know them in a much deeper way. It is a way that allows me to praise all of the good things in my life, and to deal with the negative aspects as well.

I see the support that people give me as a gift, and one that I am trying to work hard to earn so that one day I can feel like I deserve all of the warm thoughts that have come to me. I just wanted to take a moment to say thank you because art is a wonderful and beautiful thing, but it can also be grueling and leave you feeling somewhat isolated. As a non-visual person in the visual arts you might think that I would feel that way at times, alone I mean, but I never have. I have always felt like I had a group of people right there with me giving me their support. Thank you.

First Flight

I flew a plane for the first time yesterday, it was an incredible experience, and yet it is only the first step in a new artistic project. The aircraft was a two-seater trainer called a Diamond. Sitting in the cockpit surrounded by gauges, buttons, and levers you are made intensely aware that an aircraft is an instrument of control – there are primary controls and even secondary ones, but with the wind buffeting the plane up and down and side to side while thousands of feet off of the ground I felt exhilarated and calm, but not really in control – more like I was flying by the seat of my pants. The thermals rising from the ground would suddenly lift the small aircraft so that you were pushed deep into your seat, and then just as quickly drop you so that you strained against the harness buckled across your chest and over your shoulders. At the same time the plane seems to slide left and right as the wind shifts and gusts creating an incredible range of motion for the aircraft – from moment to moment the little plane could seemingly be anywhere – up, down, left or right, but always moving forward. The training pilot said that it was as bumpy a day as he had seen in autumn. I had no sense of having complete control, but adapting from moment to moment making it go where you wanted was an incredible feeling. Flying was a lot like painting in that you have an idea of where you want to go, and then you work and adapt until you get the results that you want.

For me personally this was a big step, a milestone in a way. Like painting this was something that I had never done before losing my sight, but had always wanted to. When I first lost my sight I really thought that I would never be able to do anything new; this flight for me has special meaning in that it further shatters that very early misconception of mine. This isn’t why I climbed into the cockpit though. I am often reminded how life and art are so indivisibly tied together, and the reasons that brought me to fly in the first place take me back to this lesson once again. Because flight is so incredibly symbolic and carries special meaning, as does the sky, this combination makes the perfect canvas to express art.

Flight has long been symbolically important to people; this is easy to forget in this day and age where flight has become a concrete part of our lives. As long as man has watched the birds he has dreamed of flying, so much so that it has colored our language and even our perceptions in the way we view the world. In our literature and poetry flying is symbolic of liberation and of rising above the troubles and problems of our earth bound existence. The sky is seen as clean, pristine, and the heavens are even viewed as a spiritual place – leaving earthly worries and difficulties behind.

I was thinking of murals and of how large you could go, but even the most enormous of paintings is limited by the wall that it is on. I was dwelling on this and of the limits that gallery and building walls impose upon us. I thought, almost laughingly, that it is a shame that we cannot paint the sky. Imagine that; a canvas that touches everyone, and is only limited by natural laws. It occurred to me that art done here on this particular canvas wouldn’t be visible just to the people in a room in a gallery or museum, or even to the passerby’s of a painting on a wall of a city street, but possibly to all the people of a city. I have a vision of people standing and looking at art, not inside rooms starring at walls, but outside in the light all looking upwards and experiencing the same painting as it unfolds.

The paintings would be done in colored smoke that is placed in precise locations to create abstract forms. I will go into this in more detail later on, but through study it seems possible to have a great deal of control over both hue and placement of colors – that’s pretty much all you can ask of any medium that you use to paint with. You decide what color and shape you want and where to put it and then execute the stroke – do enough of those and you end up with a painting. Every medium has different handling properties, oil paint and water color are extremely different for example, and this will be same of course when it comes to painting with smoke.

In the flight that I did yesterday I was with an experienced pilot who told me what to do and when to do it, and also let me know all of the readings on the instruments. The plan is to phase the pilot out of the picture until all of his duties are replaced with a computer that will say aloud all of the instrument readings (GPS, air speed, altitude, etc.). The technology is already there, a blind Australian pilot has flown halfway around the world using these computers. Using the GPS and altimeter together it should be possible to place colors very precisely in the sky.

This is going to be a long road that is going to require many steps, but I am excited that after so long merely talking and planning about this project I am finally under way.

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