I'll post another painting on Monday. Here's a few more quotes from my studio wall:

"Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart."

--Steve Jobs

"A doctor can bury his mistakes but an architect can only advise his client to plant vines."

--Frank Lloyd Wright

"Painting is easy when you don't know how, but very difficult when you do."

--Edgar Degas

"I have the feeling that I've seen everything, but failed to notice the elephants."

--Anton Chekov

Fruit Trio Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Garden Bench Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Brenda's Bouquet Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD Brenda (my lovely wife) has been taking a floral class. This was one of her first arrangements, which I thought looked beautiful in this blue vase.

Distant Mesas Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Ranch Road Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Evening Glow Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Loading Dock at Night

oil on board, 6"x6"
SOLD

This piece is already sold but I'm posting it as an example of a series of night paintings I've been working on for several months. You can see more of them on my main website, under the "Recent Works" heading. The paintings range from six inches wide to over six feet. Sorry you'll have to hunt for them a bit, as the series is scattered through a variety of paintings.

Prowling the malls and business parks late at night while searching for subjects has made me a suspicious character in the eyes of the security guards. I do my best to look innocent while handing them my portfolio of paintings to prove I'm just a harmless eccentric.

I think I like doing these nighttime views because this is the kind of urban and suburban geography so many of us inhabit. It has become so ingrained in our cultural landscape that it is almost invisible. These are the spaces only half-glimpsed from the corner of your eye while you search for a parking place. But swept clean of people and cars, under the glare of mercury and neon, the austere corporate architecture reveals itself as stage set. These places need the energy and hum of human activity to complete them.

I'm not trying to be judgmental with these paintings. I'm more interested in a kind of journalistic neutrality--I simply try to observe and record. What is recorded may seem at once familiar and strange. I would hope it might reveal a little of us to ourselves.

Ocean Waves #2 Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Mission with Cypress Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US.

The Old Hand Oil on board, 7"x5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD Another in my series of brush "portraits."

Shell Series #3 Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Highlands Boulders Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Farm Light Oil on board, 7"x5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

I'll post a new painting tomorrow. Meanwhile...

I collect quotes, some of which end up pinned to the studio wall. Here's a few favorites:

"Treat your friends as you do your pictures, and place them in their best light."
--Jennie Jerome Churchill

"When one tugs at a single thing in nature, he finds it attached to the rest of the world."
--John Muir

"If you want to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first create the universe."
--Carl Sagan

Mountain Aspen Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD From the sunny shore to the snowy peaks in one day! Oh the joys of being able to decide what you want to paint. These are aspens in the mountains above Flagstaff, Arizona, where we lived for five years. A lot of people think it never snows in Arizona. A lot of people are wrong.

Laguna Afternoon Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Sun and Shade Watercolor on paper, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Fruit Basket Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Big Bertha Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD One of my big ol' mural brushes I use for certain blending effects. Haven't needed to use it yet for the dailies, but you never know--might come in handy for some fine detail work.

Before the Storm Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

Happy Easter and thanks to all who are following my blog for your support and encouragement. No painting post today, I'll post another on Monday.

I've been thinking lately about "intention" in art, whether a completed work of art can or should ever match what the artist intended at the beginning. Most artists I know (myself included) seem never really satisfied with what they create. For me, the process of painting itself is always the exciting part. The work in its incomplete state represents boundless possibility--the hope that something extraordinary may result. But as it nears completion (completion being the point when I can't come up with anything else to do to it) I inevitably begin to feel those creeping tendrils of disappointment. The finished painting, it seems, just NEVER quite matches the dream. And it doesn't matter if the dream was a carefully organized plan, or just the vaguest of notions.

I can't find the exact quote but the artist Jasper Johns once said something to the effect that an artist doesn't really do what they want to do, instead they do what they can't help but do.

But this helplessness in the face of one's art is not necessarily a bad thing. In fact, it may be the BEST thing about an artist's work: that it will never quite behave; that it develops a life of its own.
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"Accept that I can plan nothing...I often find this intolerable and even impossible to accept; because, as a thinking and planning human being, it humiliates me to find out that I am so powerless. It casts doubt on my competence and constructive abilities. My only consolation is that I did actually make the pictures--even though they are a law unto themselves, even though they treat me any way they like and somehow just take shape. Because it's still up to me to determine the point at which they are finished. (Picture making consists of a multitude of Yes/No decisions, with a Yes to end it all.)"

Gerhard Richter, German painter

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"You do not even have to believe in yourself or your work. You have to keep open and aware directly to the urges that motivate you. Keep the channel open...No artist is pleased...

There is no satisfaction whatever at any time. There is only a queer, divine dissatisfaction, a blessed unrest that keeps us marching--and makes us more alive than the others."

Martha Graham, dancer/choreographer

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The Odd Couple Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD All I thought about was the color combination, which I loved, when I set these down together. As I was painting, I started to imagine what it would be like to bite into one and then the other. Odd.

Murrieta Evening Oil on board, 5"x7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD Another piece painted on location directly behind our home.

Gullible Pair Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

04/03/07 Painting of the Day

Highland Clouds Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD

04/02/07 Painting of the Day

Swallow Oil on board, 6"x6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD