Ancestor 7 Acrylic on paper, 6" x 6 1/2" (approx.) $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US.

Ancestor 6 Acrylic on paper, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. I liked how this one evolved into a wise little adult in a baby's body. Haven't we all had those moments when we almost shudder at the knowledge we seem to glimpse behind a small child's eyes?

Ancestor 5 Acrylic on paper, 7" x 5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. The fun part of painting portraits that don't have to resemble anyone in particular is that I end up inventing my own cast of characters. I stop when they seem like interesting people. Maybe the process is a little like that of a novelist imagining a fictional person into being. As this painting developed I began to think this girl's face looked a little like many of the women in Renoir's paintings--a certain kind of puffy-cheeked poutiness. Then someone said she/he looked like Val Kilmer, and my whole consciousness of the painting shifted. I like that nebulous quality, though--gives one room to dream.

Ancestor 4 Acrylic on board, 7" x 5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. After painting in this patriarchal character, something made me want to mask the eyes. Maybe it was the intensity of the gaze. The horizontal brushstroke created a different kind of tension that I liked, so I left it.

Ancestor 3 Acrylic on paper, 6 1/2" x 5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US.

Ancestor 2 Oil on board, 7" x 5" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. I'm not certain, but think the photo I worked from for this painting might be Mrs. Berger as a child (see yesterday's post.) There is an echo in the girl's features that resembles the wizened face of the lady I knew.

Ancestor 1 Acrylic on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. And now for something completely different. I've been doing a series of small portraits lately, inspired by my longtime interest in old photographs. Over the years I've done many paintings along this line. Mrs. Berger was an elderly lady who lived next door to us when I was growing up. I mowed her lawn and in return she gave me shiny silver dollars. She was the last living link in a family that migrated to America from Germany, and when she died my father became the default executor of her estate. I ended up "inheriting" her old leather-bound photo albums. I leaf through the yellowing pages now and then. The faces in those haunting tintypes stare out at me so poignantly, as I realize no one now alive knows who they were; a fate that awaits us all eventually. I love using those portraits as starting points for paintings. I don't feel constrained to get a likeness (who would know?) or follow the photo closely; they just provide a launching point for my imagination. Studying the photographs I see the obvious shared humanity. But there is a strangeness as well, the remoteness of a lost era and lost culture, that I find equally compelling and interesting to explore in paint.

Afterglow Oil on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD Our little red barn makes another appearance, silhouetted against the evening sky. The Open Studio went well, I made several sales and got to meet some interesting people. Thanks to all who visited and thanks to the other Open Studio artists who kindly passed the word about my late entry on the tour. On Saturday night there was a fundraiser gala in La Grande to raise money for converting the old Carnegie Library into an arts center, with display, performance and classroom facilities. I was so impressed with the number of people in this small community who showed up for the $50 per plate dinner, purchased art and bid generously on various donated auction items. Given the difficult economy these days, it was especially heartening to see this show of support for the arts.

Two Cute Cukes Oil on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. Our tiny garden continues to produce tiny but tasty produce. NEWSFLASH: I will be participating in the Grande Ronde Studio Tour this weekend. If you'll be in or near northeast Oregon on Saturday or Sunday, please pay a visit. My studio is on the top floor of the Union County Museum in downtown Union, Oregon, 331 S. Main Street (catty-corner from the post office.) Use the Center Street entrance on the NE corner of the building. Hours are 10-5 Saturday and Noon-5 Sunday. I am a Johnny-come-lately to the tour--it was set up last fall before we were even here--so am not listed on the tour map. But the other eight artists on the route have kindly agreed to promote me by word-of-mouth. You can download the tour map at this site: http://www.visitlagrande.com/calendar.html. Click on "Grande Ronde Studio Tour." I hope to see you this weekend!

Streambend Oil on board, 5" x 7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US.

Kokanee Run Oil on board, 5" x 7" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD Bang!!...just like that my images return to the blog and I'm back up and running! I still don't know what exactly happened but I'm grateful to have my blog back and grateful to all of you for your patience. Here's the painting I meant to post over a week ago, before I was so rudely interrupted. The salmon were running up the Wallowa River to spawn when we were there over Labor Day weekend. I'm not an expert but I believe these are called Kokanee. What a beautiful sight they made-- flashes of bright vermilion flickering over the granite streambed.

Fracture #4

pastel and charcoal on paper, 40" x 32"
1986
Private Collection
Click images to enlarge

Over time the objects in the still life series begun that summer became progressively less literal. I was not as interested in just rendering the objects and more involved in trying to use these vessel forms as metaphors. For what, exactly, I couldn't say but I had a growing feeling that the way I thought about and painted these simple objects could hopefully make them stand-in for a whole range of experience and emotions.

This raku vessel was made by my friend Tom Dimond and was one of our treasured possessions. When it was accidentally broken, I felt awful. But I had to admit I was fascinated with the look of the broken form. It led to painting after painting. In this one, it seemed interesting to turn the vessel in such a way that at a glance it appeared whole, then lay the pieces out almost like evidence.

A Night of Snow in the Mountains

Oil on canvas, 29 1/2" x 74", 1986
Private Collection

In my first still life, "Things That Are Blue" there was something very compelling to me in the straightforward placement of objects side by side. I began using repetition as a design element. I felt it spoke to notions of movement and the passage of time.






What Will We Do When
This Story's Over?

Acrylic on canvas, 79" x 61", 1995
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In this painting perhaps the vessels could be human forms. Or perhaps not. I was growing more comfortable with ambiguity. In fact, it was something to be desired. Things didn't have to add up or make sense. It was better when the paintings weren't required to reach conclusions, tell stories, teach lessons, be so sure of themselves. The ambiguous seemed a more accurate reflection of my experience in this wondrous, mysterious world.




Different Times, Different Days

Acrylic on board, 48" x 96", 1986
Collection University of Washington
Health Sciences Center

The observation shifted from external to internal. Lip service was paid to the objects, but the paintings were really about painting. It was fun orchestrating color and shape in these large-scale works. There were no pre-determined goals. I stopped when the painting seemed to arrive somewhere. Sometimes no one was more surprised than I at what resulted.

Things That Are Blue

Oil on canvas, 28" x 40" (approx.), 1984
Private Collection
Click image to enlarge

In the summer of 1984 I was unhappy with the progress of my artwork. I felt the need to change my routines in order to try to shake something fresh out. Not having done much still life work, I decided to set up this arbitrary arrangement in my studio and vowed to spend some time with it. The objects were plopped down alongside each other pretty casually--I didn't want them to be "artfully" composed.

I worked on the painting for several weeks, and remember getting completely absorbed in that wrinkled white cloth. I was amazed at the incredible range of subtle color that was in the whiteness (this bad photo doesn't do it justice.) The longer I looked, the more I saw. It was a maddening, humbling, exhilarating lesson in the discipline of simply looking. I didn't know it then, but this painting was the beginning of six months of still life painting that took me down a completely unexpected but exciting path of new explorations.

Objects in Time and Space

Charcoal and acrylic on paper, 22" x 30",(approx.)
Private Collection
Click image to enlarge

This painting was done several weeks (maybe months) later. I was getting increasingly interested in experimenting within the still life format. I wanted to find ways to surprise myself; to make the paintings more open-ended, less pre-planned. For this piece I decided to build a kind of unpredictability into the painting process itself. None of these objects were ever placed together in this arrangement. I would set one thing on the table and draw it on the paper. Then I would remove it and place the next object to draw, choosing an almost random placement. In this manner the design grew organically over time, and the space each object occupied was, in a way, only in my mind.

Trespasser

Alkyd on board, 24" x 34 1/2," 1980
Private Collection

Click image to enlarge


Since we're still struggling with server troubles, I'm going down memory lane here and posting a couple of paintings out of my murky past. The first painting dates from about 1980. You can probably see the influence of my early idol, Andrew Wyeth, in this work.

A bit of backstory on why I called it "Trespasser:" I wandered uninvited one winter day into this old abandoned farmhouse. The main room was empty except for this fabulous bathtub. It was so bizzare and I knew immediately I wanted to paint it, so I sat on the floor and began a drawing. In about ten minutes I heard a truck come up the driveway. In stormed the owner, a local farmer, furious that I was there. I was apologizing, talking fast, showing him my drawing and trying to convince him I was a harmless eccentric. He walked to the window and silently stared out, hawklike, for several long seconds, thumping his finger on the windowframe. Then I could see his face visibly soften. He said he guessed I wasn't doing any harm and I could go ahead and finish what I started.

He left and I sat in the silence, drawing. I couldn't get that image of him at the window out of my head-- he just had to be in this painting. After about a week I screwed up enough courage to ask him to pose, and to my surprise he said yes. When he came in the door he chuckled and said "Where do you want me, in the bathtub?"




The House Below the Mountain

Monotype and oil on paper, 40" x 30," 1984
Private Collection

Click image to enlarge


This second piece was done about four years later. By then I was experimenting a lot with less literal approaches to subjects. When I revisited the Trespasser theme the result was a less controlled, more dreamlike image.

Still trying to get to the bottom of my image/server woes. It's at these times I feel utterly helpless, depending on my kid's computer expertise to figure out and fix the problem. Bless their generous hearts for helping out old Mr. Low-Tech. Meanwhile, just so you'll have something to look at--here's some photos I took Sunday, as the Cycle Oregon riders came to Union. Click images to enlarge.

I snapped this shot from the upstairs window of my studio on Union's Main Street. These are just two of two thousand riders on the tour this year, a 250 mile loop through northeast Oregon. They came streaming into town all day today, to cheers and welcome signs from the friendly locals.

My friend, artist and writer Dan Price from Joseph came rolling in with the Cycle Oregon crew on his Terra Trike. He paid a visit to the studio and we caught up on old times. Dan is an amazing guy who makes hand-written and illustrated journals of his life and travels. Visit his blog to get a taste of what he does, then check out his journals at Moonlight Chronicles.

Here's Dan (gray shirt) showing his customized Terra Trike to fellow riders. He recently completed a 4500-mile ride across the U.S. in this machine.

The bikers camped behind the high school, effectively doubling the size of Union for one night! The ride is quite a logistical feat. Volunteers (maybe former circus workers?) travel ahead of the riders to set up camp, then strike the tents the following day to head for the next camp. There are baggage trucks, portable showers, port-a-potties and who knows what else to lug along. Oh, and they feed hot meals to this benign traveling army as well.

Kicking back after the day's trek.

Technical Trouble

Thanks to all who have let me know about the problem seeing images on the blog. My server appears to be down and we're trying to get to the bottom of it. My apologies--thanks for your patience.

Mountain River Oil on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD This water is COLD! The Wallowa River is fed by high wilderness lakes and snowmelt runoff. There is still snow from last winter on those peaks and--ready or not--more will fall soon. Bonneville Mountain looms in the background. By the way, Wallowa is pronounced WUH--LOW (as in "OW that hurt")--UH.

The Wallowas Oil on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD This scene is about twenty miles from my house, as the crow flies. But I'm not a crow, so by road it's eighty miles of curvy mountain highway. But it's worth the trip for the gorgeous scenery. The view is from the head of Wallowa Lake, looking toward the Eagle Cap Wilderness. My memories of childhood include many camping and hiking trips into the high meadows and indigo lakes tucked away in these rugged mountains.

Rain's Over Oil on board, 6" x 6" $125.00 + $6.00 shipping in US. SOLD A rainbow makes a fleeting appearance after a sudden late summer shower.