“Gaston”
Oil/Panel
24” x 32”
1999
Gaston commissioned this painting. His requested that it be life size, feature his back and yet show his face a little. The rest of how the painting looked was up to me. He and I both loved this piece immediately.
But what is really satisfying is that 23 years later I ran into Gaston and his new husband. He told me that he still loves the painting so much and wondered if I could be persuaded to do a painting of similar quality of his husband.
Absolutely. As of this writing I have not done the painting yet. But when I do I will put it on the site in its chronological spot. But I’ll be sure to put a second copy of the painting here next to Gaston.
“Ganymede”
Oil/Canvas
54” x 46”
1999
Some pieces just fall in your lap. Others are a struggle from the very beginning.
This one was difficult from the beginning to the end. In fact I was certain I had failed to create anything worthwhile on this project until 20 years later when re-organizing my storage of old paintings I came across an uncharacteristically rolled canvas. I don’t usually store my paintings that way. They are usually stretched, presumably because they need to be ready to show at any time.
When I unrolled the painting I was surprised to see this painting because I thought I had discarded it as a failure. However, I was even more surprised at how powerful it was. I’m often my own harshest critic but I am capable of admiring and enjoying my own work. I think this is mostly because my best work isn’t really “mine” anyway. It is a gift that comes to me from time to time for reasons I have still not figured out how or why after all these years and all these paintings.
Ganymede was a beautiful Greek boy back in the day… the day when Greek men were allowed to venerate physical beauty whether it was a girl or a boy and when sexual orientation was more fluid and the feeling that sex was imbued with shame was far less. Contrary to common misunderstanding, the ancient Greeks were modest. While they were open and comfortable with sex and sexuality in a way that would be shocking to most of us and they were very comfortable with nudity in their art and in certain public arenas, they were not guileless and shameless in all situations and sexual organs were portrayed as peculiarly small to those of us accustomed to modern pornography.They did this because they wanted to deemphasize the organs of appetite. Despite their open admiration for the sexual appeal of young men and women they still valued thought and propriety over lasciviousness. So the penises that managed to escape nearly 2,000 years of Christian shame about sex and our bodies look peculiarly small to modern audiences.
Well, my Ganymede has his back to us so I managed to escape that tiresome old saw of answering why his penis is so small. But I was left with other challenges that frankly I hadn’t realized I had overcome as well as I did.
This theme of depicting Ganymede was surprisingly popular throughout history especially during the late Hellenistic period of Ancient Greece and since the Renaissance in Europe. And not surprisingly, It’s a story about old man Zeus getting all excited about seeing a beautiful young man and then seducing said youth by disguising himself as something he was not and carrying him away. That never happens in real life does it? Well, what a wonderful way to delight in the artful display of young flesh and all under the ruse of it being about the high mindedness of art… it’s almost like the deception in the story itself. How cool is that?
Well, I approve. And apparently so did lots of wealthy lecherous old queens over the years. A quick image google of “Ganymede” and you will see what I mean.There are hundreds of painting, engravings, sculptures and frescoes on the subject. It’s truly remarkable.
Most of these artworks feature a youth depicted according to the tastes of the time being carried off by a large eagle artfully displaying the youth for our eyes to feast upon while Zeus does the dirty work of abducting him and holding him up for us to enjoy. These works disturbed me for reasons that took a while to figure out but eventually gave me clues about how to depict my Ganymede.
The fact that Zeus was doing the heavy lifting meant that I as the viewer was left to simply be the viewer.That made this whole thing seem tawdry perhaps because it made me feel powerless. The most I could do was admire the artisan ship from afar and make a quality judgment about the desirability of Ganymede’s loins and the artist’s brushwork.
It wasn’t that I felt prudish. No, I wanted to be Zeus.
So I decided to depict Ganymede as though I was the eagle dropping down about to swoop up this gorgeous young man below me. As it turns out, this lithe beautiful young man with his smooth flawless skin and narrow build and lowered head does in fact look vulnerable and ready and even willing to be seduced and abducted.The challenge, I think, is that I’m not gay. And since this was a painting about seduction and that awkward in between world of willing or not, I couldn’t really evaluate whether it was “working” or not while I was still immersed in creating it.
Sure, I had done lots of other paintings of beautiful men. In some cases the paintings were little more complicated than simply celebrating the beauty of a man. I didn’t need to be gay to do those paintings. What was different about this one?
The difference is that those other paintings were more like expressions of myself. I am a man, after all. And proud of it.I’m beautiful.And my paintings of men are too. But in Ganymede I am the unseen eagle who isn’t really attracted to smooth young men. I think I could not Square with this piece when I painted it because I couldn’t relate to Ganymede as a male or even the idea of it in the first place.
Not only do I not desire young men but I don’t particularly like being hunted by either men or women. Some people like to be hunted at least in subtle ways or perhaps not so subtle ways in very particular situations. And maybe that is the point of having a work of art about this. It’s a chance to contemplate one’s preferences and desires and maybe even glimpse those forces that lurk below our surfaces which may even shape our actions and thoughts in ways we don’t realize.
That is what happened when I accidentally unrolled this piece recently.All those inner forces that hide in the darker spaces of my mind were suddenly opened up and I was blown away.
Did I do that? Once again I had proof as much as anyone will ever get that no… I did not do that… something much bigger and more powerful reached down and pushed something through me. Perhaps it was Zeus ….not disguised as an Eagle, but rather hiding himself in the works of previous artists and my own experience with pornography and real life seductions.
It is said the gods work in mysterious ways.
“Jordon in the Corner”
Oil/panel
7 x 4’
1999
When I painted this I was about to become a father. My wife was pregnant with our son and he was coming soon. I knew that when he arrived my world would change…and in some important ways it did.
I knew that my days of painting until I dropped no matter what hour of the day or night would soon be replaced with more regular routines. My painting style would likely become more craftsmanly and systematic rather than the explosive bursts of creativity and raw energy followed by periods of exhaustion and recovery that were on a schedule completely my own. My life had already changed to some extent from being involved and eventually marrying Melinda. But we were independent souls and gave each other a lot of space. No, I knew that once Sam arrived things would finally, at the age of 39, settle down into some level of normal for me.
And so I pumped this piece out at break neck speed working straight through from start to finish, partly goaded on by the fact that Melinda was already a few days past due to deliver Sam and that “the phone call” might come at any moment.And I knew that it would probably be the last time I would have a chance to work like that for a long time… and I was right.
This is the last of what I call my black paintings.I call them “black” simply because I used a lot of black paint not because of the other associations with that color.
“Lovers With Red Curtain”
Oil/canvas
42” x 60”
1999
This piece was the second piece I created for a commission by the two men featured here. Often when I am commissioned I do more than one piece and let my client pick the piece they want. I actually preferred this piece myself so when they selected the other piece I was happy.
“Doug”
Oil/Panel
48” x 32”
1999
There have been a lot of Doug’s in my life. This Doug is a friend who lives in LA and whom I met and came to know through my involvement with the Invisible Theater. This was an annual celebration of the man’s journey in life through a multi disciplinary arts presentation. Doug is a very accomplished artist himself. I painted this painting of him as decoration for one of those events. Although it wasn’t my intent, I was delighted that he bought it for himself.
It is a rule of thumb in figure painting that the eye of the viewer will quickly go to faces, hands and genitalia. I deliberately left the first 2 out of the composition just to see what would happen. I wanted the detail and sumptuousness of the rest of the painting to compete with the gravitational pull of a penis in plain view. Even to this day it’s fun to see how one’s attention moves around the painting in unexpected ways.
“Two Men on a Rock”
Oil/canvas
8 x 8’
1999
This painting was painted over a piece I created in 1992. I never liked the painting from 1992 although there were parts I liked very much. In fact, there were some parts that I liked so much I considered cutting the canvas into sections and simply saving the parts I liked. But instead, one day I was so sure I had a better idea for a canvas that big so I just painted over it.
The original painting was itself an attempt to repaint a complex piece I had done 10 years earlier than that in 1982 when I was a college student. That piece was done on an old cardboard refrigerator box because at the time I was too poor to afford canvas, especially one that big. I still have that painting! The pieces were both inspired by Picasso’s “Le’Vie” and the themes of an artist trying to reconcile his passion for art and his desire to be in relationship with complicating subplots like loyalty to friends, a sense of being called by a higher power and responsibility to be a stable provider for one’s family and what happens when all those things don’t align.It’s a tall order for one painting. And the first two times I tried I failed miserably.
Finally, at the age of 38 or so I was trying again. This time all that rich complexity was distilled to an almost Neanderthal tug-of-war with two men precariously fighting over something on a large rock. It’s not clear what they are fighting over but I suppose that’s the point. I myself have often wondered in the middle of an argument or fight just what was it I was so worked up about.
It is certainly not as complex as the other paintings I tried nor the Picasso, but it is clearly more successful as a painting. I have no regrets for painting over the old one and am considering tossing the even older one on a cardboard box in the dumpster.
“Kerry and his Lover”
Oil/ panel
30 x 48”
1999 or 2000
This was the Plan B painting.
I was commissioned by the man in this painting to do a large complex portrait of him. I did, and I wrote quite a story about that painting and added it to this website. However, at the time of the commission, Kerry, the man who commissioned these pieces, recognized that what he was asking for was perhaps too much…to complex…to conflicting and too restrictive. And so, to hedge his bets on getting a strong work of art, he asked me to do a more straight forward figurative piece of him and his lover engaged in having sex. To be sure, there were still a few constraints and stipulations, but on the whole, this was indeed a more straightforward commission.
It’s hard to say which is the better painting. It is like comparing apples and oranges in that they are 2 very different works. However, there is no doubt that the larger initial commissioned piece is not a flop. And it is worth noting that it so easily could have been. Since Kerry is an architect he understands the risks of putting too many constraints and ideas of his own on an artist. But I liked Kerry and even though we were new friends at the time of this commission, we clicked. Moreover, he spent real time and money investing in me getting to know him. He paid to fly me from my home in Seattle to his home in Denver. Then spent a week including me in his routines as well as a special event he set up. He even encouraged me to join he and his partner in bed. And while I wasn’t interested in that, I was able to get intimate photographs that were the foundation of this painting.
The result was that I did in fact have an in-depth understanding of him and what he wanted. Or, at least I felt I did. I recently ran into Kerry at the memorial service of a dear friend. He told me that these 2 paintings were his most prized possessions and he uses them year after year to take the measure of his life.
“Downward Dog”
Oil/Panel
48” x 32”
1999
This painting was done in LA for the second Invisible Theater.
The title and the pose clearly indicate the pose is based on a yoga position. It was painted quickly and represents a direction I didn’t take.
Frankly, looking back at this painting 30 plus years later I’m surprised I didn’t do more paintings of yoga positions or any paintings in this style. And yet the basics seem perfect for me: the emphasis on basic volumes, larger than life scale, the depiction of sensual flesh and a loose virtuosic application of paint. These are all things I enjoy a lot and have employed in my work. And yet, not quite like this.
The other strange thing about this piece worth noting is that I never sold it nor even had a nibble. And yet for all it’s sexiness, it’s basically PG rated. Even the pose, a yoga pose, did not cinch its place in the market.
“Carry”
Oil/panel
48” x 32”
1999
Painting 2 figures is so much more than twice the challenge of painting one. Each figure needs to feel right, of course. But the emotional and physical interaction needs to look right as well. And beyond just being correct, they need to say something.
What are they saying? What are they doing for that matter? I don’t know, but the thing I like about this piece is the way their flesh seems to melt into one another like two slab of grilled ham or omelets and melted cheese.
I also don’t know where this piece is. I don’t remember selling it and it wasn’t in the batch of paintings recovered from the art dealer who stole over a thousand pieces but whose ex wife returned most of them. Perhaps it was stolen and sold and it just never made it onto the inventory lists used in the recovery process.
If anybody knows the whereabouts of this piece please let me know.
“Vivian”.
Oil/canvas
40” x 30”. Approximately
1998
This piece was commissioned by the woman in the painting. She had seen my work in a number of places and found her way to me through a mutual friend. She wasn’t sure what she wanted but definitely of her and nude. She agreed to do a photo shoot and because of her schedule I did the painting from the photos. To hedge my bets I did 2 paintings and she chose this one.
“Table Position”
Oil/Panel
48” x 48”
1998
The interesting thing to me about this piece is when it was painted. 1998.
This was 2 years after I moved on from paining in this way: a black and white palette, fast and usually with this and a few other models. But this woman in particular was someone I did not paint after the intense outburst of 1996. Furthermore, almost all of the paintings I did of her were done from photos including this one, making it all the more interesting that I didn’t continue doing paintings of her long after I lost contact with her. She moved to the East Coast with her partner in 1997.
But I still had all those photos.
This post “black period” piece is not as strange as it would seem though. Looking over 30 plus years of work, apparently I do this kind of thing pretty often. After I have moved on from a particular way of painting I double back and do one more almost as a way of testing myself. Is it really over? Or is there more to say with this approach? Or maybe it’s like visiting an old friend. Aahhhh … this is easy. I know how to do this.
In this case I may have lost interest before finishing it. I seem to remember thinking that painting in the square in the middle is not needed and what the hell am I doing here anyway. In this case it was a little like a visit to an old lover. Curiosity and nostalgia conspire and get you on the road. But once there you are barely in the door when you remember why you moved on in the first place.
Jo was not my lover. And I don’t have anything less than wonderment about my “black and white” period other than a tinge of regret that I hadn’t done just a few more. But having tried to do “one more” it became clear there was no going back. Like many of the best things in life, there is a limit. And magic moments are just that, magical coincidences of energy where things just come together in the right way for a brief yet somehow eternal moment.
“Ray & His Father”
Oil/Panel
6′ x 4’
1998
I don’t paint people with clothes on very often, but it can be done. I love this painting. Ray was a friend of mine who was a dancer and organized a jazz dance festival every year called “Men in Dance.” He asked me if I would like to paint and show some large paintings for the stage of the concert.
This painting was inspired by the dance Ray created for himself to perform. It commemorates his father who had recently died. The man in the middle is a photo Ray gave me of his father. Its clunky and blunt integration of the photo image in the painting has always seemed just right even though it is that… clunky and blunt. I believe some of the success of the piece stems from the fact that I conceived of the background as clothing for the painting as the clothes were clothing for the body. The clothes needed to respond to what was underneath. Perhaps another part of the success of the piece is also due to the fact that I had just done a life size painting of a Frans Hals painting. It was a large banquet painting and required many rigorous hours and days of work. As a result, I developed my brushwork, speed and confidence.
“Abstract with Feet”
Oil/panel
6 x 4’
1998
This piece is so many different things to different people. I myself have no idea what it “means.” It just felt intuitively “right” to paint those feet into one of my abstract painting that had been sitting around the studio for several years.
To some people it was a symbol of hope and even resurrection. The feet suggested a rising up or even the feet of Christ as through time collapsed and he was rising above the agony of crucifixion and skipping right to the glory of his ascension into heaven.
To others it was horrifying.The feet looked dead to them and suggested a lynching or even a suicide.
I could see both interpretations and made no effort to correct anybody. Sometimes I do have an agenda for a painting and I chafe a little when people see it as different or even opposite of my intention. But not this time. I genuinely had no “message” in mind when I did it.
I will say that I was in part inspired to do it this way by the films I had recently discovered by Peter Greenaway. He was using split screen technology in his films at a time when that was very new.Split screens or even multiple screens are so common in our everyday life now I almost forgot to mention them.To be sure the art of collage had been around a long time before split screen technology. But there was something about seeing it on a screen that made it particularly hard edge. And Greenaway had his own unique way of using this new digital collage that inspired this piece. Check out his films when you get a chance.My favorite is called “Pillow Book.”
“5 Male Archetypes”
Oil on panels
Various sizes but approximately 6’ x 4’
1998
The paintings in this group were painted for a theatrical production that I helped start and then run for a few years. It was called the Invisible Theater and was hosted on the grounds of a club called Nature Friends next to the home of my friend, patron and mentor Ken Symington and his partner Bruce Anderson.
I met Ken at my studio in Seattle in 1998. Work on my own ideas in painting was playing itself out and I was in need of something new. Ken was brought to my studio to lead an Aiowasca session by some men who were part of my circle. I didn’t know what Aiowasca was at that time and wasn’t scheduled to be part of the ceremony. I was merely renting my studio to Ken and his associates because it was deemed an appropriate space for such a thing.
I learned an enormous amount that weekend and met a whole new circle of people that were to give my life a new injection of creativity and ideas at just the right time. Ken loved my work and arranged to buy one of my larger and stronger works that same weekend. And he invited me to come down to LA to visit and get to know him and his partner better as well as experience a smaller Aiowasca session myself.
Ken was a white Cuban who had escaped Cuba as a young man during the Castro revolution. As such, Spanish was his first language. And even though he had spent his career as an engineer he was now, in his retirement devoting his life to translating the work of Peruvian Aiowascaroes and bringing their knowledge and practices to Americans.
I went down to see Ken as soon as I could. I experienced my first guided sessions with Ken. We had incredible dinners and met engaging people. And it was all in a Mediterranean like setting in a canyon outside LA in a small village called Sierra Madre. Ken, his partner Bruce and the other men I met on that trip have become life long friends. Their knowledge and life experiences have continued to enrich me to this day. And they were the inspiration for these paintings.
On that first trip we hatched the idea of doing a theatrical and artistic presentation about and for men. This was born out of Ken’s deep interest in helping men become fully developed men, not the childish boys that he saw so many men become stuck in, never growing into their full manhood despite their age, privilege and income.
Ken was not a woman hater. Quite the contrary. He loved women and courted their company as well. In fact he introduced me to a woman who became my lover for a brief period. But Ken’s work was with men, and specifically healing and nurturing their transition from boyhood to manhood and various stages including death.
It was decided that the first theatrical production would be on the theme of male archetypes. At this point no one really knew what we were doing. We just knew we were a couple of creative and motivated guys who wanted to put on a show. I was an artist of course, so I wanted to do paintings. Others were more theatrically oriented.
The 5 men involved at this early point each chose an archetype and then developed a theatrical concept to present. The Boy. The Lover. The Warrior. The King and the Magician were the ones chosen. When they were ready with their concepts, costumes and choreography I arranged to go back down to LA and photograph each of them as their archetypal selves.
Everyone was so well prepared and so cooperative with me. And, as it turned out, this photo shoot turned out to be a kind of dress rehearsal and concept workshop for how we would present all this material. In a sense, I was the de-facto director of the first Invisible Theater.
Instead of returning to Seattle with my photos, I decided to stay in LA and do the paintings in a marathon painting frenzy and put on the show a week later. During that time I painted these 5 large paintings. But that was not enough. I wanted a smaller simpler painting to flank each of these major arcana pieces. The smaller paintings were torsos of male figures inspired by the other men that had by now become involved in this production. This was a way to both embellish the presentation of the paintings, but also a way to involve the other men. It also helped fill the space from wall to wall with art. But this meant having to create 10 more pieces during that week.
The results were mixed. Some of the “extra” paintings didn’t turn out so well and one could make the argument that not all the archetypes were top notch. Nevertheless, there were enough gems in the group to make the presentation a hit with both the participants and the audience.
It’s hard to say which painting I did first. All of the blank panels were lined up in the room and I moved around as inspiration and energy allowed. Ken and Bruce provided me with a beautiful room to rest and all the food I could eat. And so I painted nearly for one week straight. It was the most intense week of painting in my career thus far.
The Warrior was a total triumph of vision and execution. At the time of this writing I don’t have an image of this painting. But I am in touch with its owner and will remedy that soon. Danial was the warrior. And his warrior spirit was marshaled to free himself of the constraints of an overbearing mother and the ideologies she enforced upon him from his birth. To be clear, Daniel wasn’t waging war with his mother. He was waging a battle with the voices of his mother in his head.
The piece features his body painted and in a warrior dance like pose, head tilted back and arms akimbo with clenched fists. That was all there in the photo shoot. What wasn’t there, specifically, was the severed head of the mother below his parted legs. She appears in the painting as a wild hag with hair flailing and eyes and mouth wide open in a scream of rage. Her torn neck becomes raw paint that runs down the painting as though blood itself was thrown at the painting. At 8’ tall it is intense.
Danial loved what I did with his vision and bought the painting immediately. Apparently he has never hung the painting. Instead, he keeps it stashed under his bed.
“The Boy”
Oil/Panel
5’ x 3’
1998
“The Boy” is the smallest piece which seemed appropriate to me given its subject. Francisco was the boy and indeed was the youngest member of this new tortulio I found myself involved in. Fransisco chose to present his body as a kind of surrender. He also incorporated the zodiac in his presentation so I included them here, leaving only one missing…his…which I decided was best represented by his body. The black cloak behind him was my nod to the shadow of death that is present even in the most celebratory moments of life.
Fransisco and I stay in touch. From time to time he will surface in my life either through email or just showing up in Seattle. Each time he threatens to buy the painting. There is much discussion followed by a resolve to complete the transaction and then . nothing. He is gone for another few years. It’s ok … I love having the piece and frankly don’t want to sell it. I only consider selling it to him because he is the model and subject.
“The Lover”
Oil/Panel
8’ x 4’
1998
“The Lover” has its own fraught history. This piece was only 80% done by the time the week was over and the show came and went. But Michael, the blonde in the painting was deeply in love with the idea of romantic love and with Kenny, the other man in the painting. And so, they bought the painting from me with the caveat that I come to their place in Miami to finish it.
That was a mistake. The painting was shipped successfully to their home in Miami and I did go there. They were incredibly gracious hosts and put me up in their fabulous home and even put up with some of my questionable behavior. But my mistake was allowing them to become involved with making adjustments to the painting all of which were driven by vanity, not artistic vision. What started out as a tweek here and a tweek there soon became here a tweek there a tweek everywhere a tweek tweek. Basically I nibbled away at the vision and feeling for the painting and it finally crossed the finish line looking at a glance like it did when it arrived in Miami but to me now looked like a shell of its former self. Indeed, it would have been better had I arrived and done nothing.
Fortunately, it was not an omen of their relationship. Now, nearly 30 years later they are still together and as in love as ever.
“The Magician”
Oil/Panel
7’ x 4’
1998
“The Magician” was played by Ken. As the man behind the scenes who was making this all happen and as the quiet Aiawascaro, this was a fitting archetype for him to play. The painting is my effort to present Ken in the many guises that I observed him imbibing and laying them out on the cabalistic tree of life, a rubric he often used to tell stories or add bits of wisdom to an otherwise trivial conversation. I was already familiar with the Tree of Life so it wasn’t a stretch for me to incorporate this.
This piece is my favorite of the group and I feel most powerfully captures both the individual portraying the archetype as well as the concepts presented by that person.
Ken loved it too and bought the piece and hung it over his bed. It stayed there until his death in 2022. Bruce offered to gift the painting back to me after Ken passed. But Jeff Kennedy asked if he could have it. More than anyone else, Jeff is the heir apparent of Ken’s work. And so it was an honor to have the painting of Ken as Magician pass to Jeff.
During Ken’s “celebration of life” ceremony hosted by Bruce, this painting was hung at the head of the room. It was a very loving experience to be there watching people one after another come up to the painting and address the painting as though it was Ken, telling intimate stories, revealing powerful emotions and coming to terms with his passing as though he was there ….in the painting. It was both weird and powerful.
The following year the Invisible Theater got stronger and attracted more participants. A second performance night was added. Feelings ran hi. By that time I was married with a pregnant wife so my involvement lessened. By the 3rd year it really took off and became it’s own little community. But despite Ken’s heroic efforts, it became less about men and more about gay men. Not being gay, and having a newborn as well as still living in Seattle meant that after the 3rd year I announced that would be my final year.
I was itching to do something less theatrical, more artistic and more pansexual. It would take another 2 years but eventually I started something called the Little Red Studio.
“The King”
Oil/Panel
7’ x 4’
1998
The King is considerably more complex and probably took the most time to paint. The concept was created by the man whose portrait is featured here. His idea was that a king is the embodiment of the community which is supported by among other things the sacrifice of youthful passions represented here by a miniature version of the “ Boy” painting I had just created. It is painted over the area of the genitals of the King and is immolated. I didn’t actually burn the painting but I dissolved that area with paint thinner. The fire reappears as a crown above the king’s head signifying the sacrifice of youthful passions so that higher wisdom may manifest. The peacock feathers further this idea.
Joe also felt the king represented balance of male and female energy symbolized by the glass orb of earth in one hand and the phallic wand of the five grains in the other. Joe made the wand himself.
At this same time I did a more straightforward portrait of Joe as one of the flanking paintings. In it he is nude and kneeling on the floor. He is looking up in a what looks a bit like rapture. My friend Dwight bought the piece but then loaned it to Joe. Unfortunately Joe died and his heirs didn’t know what became of the piece when I contacted them a few years after his passing.
The King painting was eventually bought by a friend and associate in Seattle. Because the piece is so intense he asked me to build a cabinet for it so that he could open and close the painting at will. I did. And painted it in abstract shapes and colors that complimented the main painting. I actually like the idea and have used it many times since both for decorative and intellectual purposes.
Eventually Bryan got married and his new partner hated their King painting. So, we traded. He took the “Blue Harlequin” in trade for this piece so I am happy to say it is back in my possession.
“Feet” various versions
Oil/panel
Most of these paintings feature feet that are life size.
1996-2000
I could have made a career just painting feet. People love feet and apparently they love feet paintings. I have sold every foot painting I ever painted.Below are a few examples among the many small life size foot paintings I have done. Most of them were done from 1996-2000. After that I no longer painted fragments of bodies and that apparently included feet. It wasn’t a conscious decision. Like many changes in my career it was a gradual shift from one area of focus or approach to art into another.
There is a painting below which has an actual foot print on it.It is my then one year old son’s foot print. I thought it would be fun and conceptually interesting to include him in my work. Perhaps I was getting bored with painting standard foot paintings. Or maybe Sam just walked on the painting one day when I wasn’t watching.
“Butts for AIDS”
Oil/panel
14” x 10”
1997
In 1997 AIDS was still very much a menace and especially hard on the gay men’s community. There were frequent fund raisers for palliative care and research. My art dealer at that time was involved with organizing fund raisers and held an underwear review/party at a local gay bar. For an extra $100 you could stand on stage, drop your drawers and have an artist (me) paint a portrait of your ass. I had to work fast, devoting no more than 10 minutes or so to each “portrait.” It was a huge hit. I painted over 30 butts on one occasion
Every once in awhile someone would gift their painting to someone who would in turn forget it at the bar. I ended up with a few of these including this one. It’s not my best butt, but it is an important souvenir from a different era of Seattle’s rich cultural history and my own unique life.
“Maynard: Ballet Dancer”
Oil/panel
6’ x 4’
1997
I considered this piece a complete failure when I painted it. I’m not sure that’s true but it took me until now, in 2023, as I create this website, to figure out why I was so certain it was so bad at that time. It’s because it didn’t turn out anything like what I had intended.
It was 1997. I had just ripped through an incredible number of paintings and had pushed the limit of shear volume of production as well as boldness and speed of approach. It seems natural, from the distance of all this time, that my work would take this more careful and realistic turn. And to a degee, I think I needed to go through this to get where I wanted…the painting of Dave Lewis that I am including here so that you can see it. It is presented here in a small format since it is a reference piece, but I encourage you to scroll down to the year 2002 and see and learn more about this work and others like it.
Fortunately I didn’t need to look at this piece for very long. It sold quickly through my dealer in Denver to a man in New Orleans. He had it beautifully framed. Years later he wrote to inform me that he sold it through an art appraiser for twice what he paid for it. He didn’t send me a residual of course as is required by law in France, but I was grateful nonetheless for the news. At the risk of sounding a touch bitter I will add that twice as much of not nearly enough still ain’t much.
“Butoh”
Oil/panel
6’ x 4’
1997
By 1997 I knew everybody in Seattle who was doing Butoh. I had met and become friends with Joan Lagge a few years earlier. Joan was the grande dame of Butoh in Seattle. She formed her own troupe and having accomplished a high level of presenting traditional Butoh, began experimenting with pushing into new territory with the form. She even had members of her troupe spin off and develop their own thing.
I don’t remember this man’s name. He was fiercely devoted to his craft and made a huge impression on me. He had been a member of Joan’s troupe but was now doing his own work as a solo artist. I strongly regret having only done one painting of him. In this case I was also experimenting with split images, or I should say spliced in multiple images. I was inspired by the films of British director Peter Greenaway and the paintings of American artist David Salle. They had both made spit screens a signature part of their art.
By 1997 I was already experimenting with split screen imagery in my abstract work but this is the first time it appears in my figurative work. And, for reasons I don’t understand, the last time. I never picked it up again even though it offers an incredible range of creative expression and opportunity for complex content involvement.
However, I’m not dead yet. So who knows if I will double back and start painting Butoh again or paintings with split screen content.
“Beach Couple”
Oil/Panel (2 Panels)
48” x 32”
1997
There is so much going on in this diptych. I just wish I had painted it more carefully. I had the skills. I just didn’t have the patience … yet. I would develop the patience later. After the pace of my output slowed down. But in the meantime, there are qualities in this piece worthy of comment.
This is an early example of me expressing something about relationships by putting the 2 figures on separate panels. I could, after all, easily have put them on one painting. But the fact that they are on separate pieces says as much about their relationship as their body language. They are also subtly separated by a disconnected horizon line.
And yet, they are clearly of a piece … a matched set like all those wedding portraits from the golden era of Dutch painting and on into the stoic colonial paintings of the grim religiously devout couples who came to America and could barely touch each other in public view.
Here are Mr and Mrs Middle Class and Middle Age America making their annual trip to the Jersey Shore to relax and maybe for a moment catch a glimpse of something beyond their grinding routines and stultifying boredom that is killing them slowly even while expanding their life expectancy.
I watched these people every summer from the time I was a kid. I vowed never to become this and so these people stand like sentinels guarding the gates of hell. Beware ye who enter here lest you become bored, fat, stuck and barely aware of the world outside your routines and in a relationship with a partner you can barely touch and now hardly know.
As I write this citation I am taking a break myself, in Thailand. And while it’s a long way from the Jersey Shore, there is no shortage of the equivalent boardwalks full of the flotsam of humanity washed up and lost in their boredom. But the lost and flabby are alone here. The sentinels at this doorway to hell would be singular, but in rows … on a single canvas to mimic the long narrow bars that face the sidewalk and are actually designed for people to sit alone gazing outward at the parade of humanity passing by in front of them like the waves in this painting coming in and going out. No two exactly the same, but similar enough to be both hypnotic and captivating at the same time. Meanwhile the bellies droop lower and heads slump further on furrowed turkey necks, the only muscle in use is the bicep used for lifting a beer and to pay for the momentary joy jacked up on cheep viagra.
Maybe it doesn’t matter that this pair of paintings isn’t painted as well as an Ingre. Maybe it says enough and holds your attention long enough. This painting, ironically belongs to my ex wife who cherishes it to this day, 20 years after our divorce. I haven’t seen the painting in years. And yet, I “got all these ideas” about middle aged life even here in Thailand just by looking at the image on my website.
As I write this, there is a war being waged by Russia in Ukraine. Russia is using its tried and true strategy of throwing tons of people at the war even though they are apparently poorly trained and poorly equipped. One often hears the quote from Stalin these days that “quantity has a quality all its own”. He is, of course referring to his reputation of simply sacrificing people in mass numbers in the absence of preparation. But I couldn’t help reflect on the years of my painting once I finally found my voice in my early 30’s. I was ripping through ideas so fast I could not keep up. And I sacrificed quality for speed often and have harbored a tinge of guilt ever since. Was the quantity of my output a quality unto itself?
It’s strange how things work themselves out and from where our inspiration comes. Reflecting on old paintings, watching rows of lost souls and reading the grim news of war while strolling along the beach working on my tan.
I hope this couple found some insight in the sand castles and rolling surf, dropped whatever was holding them back and went home feeling rejuvenated and reconnected with themselves and each other. And if so, maybe I would paint them more carefully now, arms wrapped around each other and on a single canvas.
“Landsdowne’s Raven”
Oil/canvas
24” x 24”
1997
I painted this when I was in my late 30’s as a gift for my mom. She lamented the fact that I gave up painting wildlife when I was 17.
When I was a teenager I was painting the birds and other wildlife from the woods we lived in. Then, one day, I discovered the work of a Canadian artist named J Fenwick Landsdowne and my life was changed in an instant.
Landsdowne was a wildlife painter who did birds almost exclusively and used watercolor in a very realistic but sumptuous manner. He is a household name in Canada and among birders everywhere. I copied several of his works and demonstrated an unusual ability to emulate his technique and feeling.
Nearly 20 years later I found a paperback book of some of his pieces in a used bookstore. So, I chose a bird that I admired, the Raven, and did a faithful rendition of his piece, but with oil paint.
Of course I had to give it to my mom. She loved it and it hung in her home next to my high school creations until she passed in 2019. Now it hangs in my library at the time of this writing in 2025.
Markers of time. I think in traditional Native cultures of the American Northwest the Raven is the creator of time or perhaps it’s better to say the trickster spirit who leaps from one dimension to another and thereby accidentally creates time.
I copied another artist but with some purpose beyond the obvious and without intent to deceive. I inadvertently ended up marking time. It’s not over yet.
“Susan”
Oil/panel
16” x 16”
1997
Painted from life in a frenzy. It’s more like a sketch than a painting. I remember throwing the paint on as fast as I could to capture the energy and drama of the moment. Susan was a friend who hung out at my studio for a bit. She had blonde hair and intense energy. I lost touch with her shortly after I painted this. And so glad I didn’t throw it away or paint over it. Thought about it as the piece fell short of what I had in mind.
“The Three Moirai”
Oil/Canvas
8’ x 6’
1997
The three Moirai are Ancient Greek Gods that determine the fate of each soul.Traditionally they are depicted as spinning the yarn of an individual’s soul.Then measuring it and the third is cutting it. They are usually depicted as old women. A famous version is the Germanic scene of 3 witches laboring over a boiling black kettle.
In my version it’s 3 strong men wrestling over an unidentifiable object meant to suggest an unformed soul. They themselves are perched precariously atop a stone in what appears to be a volcanic landscape. The painting was inspired by a photo shoot I did of myself on a lava field in Hawaii. The lava was only a few years old. There was no active volcanic activity that day but you could definitely feel the presence of the earth.
“Dennis Rodman”
Oil/Canvas
8’ x 7’
1997
This is one of those paintings that was meant to be part of series that never came to be. I was on fire for painting during this period of my life. And my imagination knew few limits. In this case, the idea was to create a series of 4 paintings of men in extreme moments of physical exertion that would represent different expressions of humanity: sport, performing art, sacrifice in pain and pleasure.
In addition to Dennis Rodman slam dunking I was going to paint Christ on the cross writhing in pain, a ballet dancer in full form and a man at the moment of orgasm with a partner inspired by East Indian art where the male figure is holding his partner off the ground.
The idea was fraught with philosophical problems for me right from the beginning. That, along with the short attention span I suffered from at the time, I moved on after finishing only 2 of the pieces. Moreover, the ballet dancer turned out so realistic and cute that I lost further steam for the project. I was so disappointed in myself for creating what I felt was such a second rate piece that I actually stopped painting for a brief period.
Ironically the ballet dancer sold pretty quickly. But years later I was contacted by the owner of the painting telling me that he wanted to sell the piece. Then, before I could respond he told me that he had sold the piece for twice as much as he paid for it. Not a huge sum of money but interesting nevertheless.
In hindsight, the difference between the raw straightforward approach in this painting and the dainty careful less than life size work of the ballet dancer is quite interesting. And if I had gone on to paint the other two with equally unique approaches I would have really achieved something.
Maybe the Jesus painting could be a copy from an old master. And the orgasm piece could be an interpretation in paint of an actual stone carving from ancient India. The results would surely be quite different from one another.
Someday … meanwhile, this painting of Dennis Rodman hangs in the break room of my spa. My staff loves this piece and I am taking a certain pleasure in hating it.
“Fire”
Oil/panel
48 x 32”
1997
This was the first painting of a series of four that feature a torso set on a red background. The other three pieces are “Air,” “Water” and “Earth.” I wanted to restrict the series to just a torso on red background but that would somehow reflect qualities of each element. It was at this time that my work shifted from having a lot of black in the background. From this point on for a while I left the torso just sit on and in this red field. And I deliberately left them unfinished to a greater degree than before.
This piece is my favorite because it best conveys my sense that we are all simply momentary collectivizations of energy patterns into the appearance of something. It is almost as though the winds of the universe had blown up all these pieces and just for this moment they are a torso…a person. And in the blink of an eye all the parts will be blown back into the chaos of all.
Another way to describe it is that it seems to strike a delicate balance between a solid sculptural form and yet at the same time it could just be a fortunate collection of brush strokes that just happen to form a torso. A little more structure and it would just be a solid lump. A little less structure and it would just be a formless scattered mess. I’m not sure how I managed to strike that balance here. But just to see how this might work I did a copy of this piece and while it turned out to be a nice painting, it definitely does not have this extra magical quality.
“Air”
Oil/panel
48” x 32”
1997
This is the second piece I did in this four part series based on the four elements. It was inspired in part by the woman who is featured here. I based the painting on photos I took of her and which 20 years later I did some of my best work in years. See the triptych titled “souls” from 2019.
Like the “Fire” painting from this series I wanted the brush strokes and subtle coloration to reflect the corresponding element, in this case, Air. I felt like this piece, with its subtle addition of apple green and pale blue, succeeded. I sold this piece to a woman who took it to New Orleans. I did hear that it survived hurricane Katrina and has returned to Seattle. I have lost touch with the woman who purchased it. If anybody knows the whereabouts of this piece please let me know. I would be interested in purchasing it to have it in my collection.
“Earth”
Oil/panel
48” x 32”
1997
This painting was not only inspired by the four elements series as the name suggests, but also by the idea of the Greek god Apollo and Camille Paglia’s writings about Apollonian order in general and contrapposto in particular. Paglia is a feminist writer who wrote a powerful book in the 1990’s called “Sexual Personae.” Among other things, she addresses the development and the tradition of sexual personality in Western culture and how personality has come to define, to a large degree, what it is that makes Western culture “Western.” In fact, one of her statements that had a lasting impression on me was that, “contrapposto is the West.” In its simplest sense, contrapposto is an Italian word for a way of standing, a posture. Many of us are most familiar with this posture in its grandest expression, the statue of David by Michelangelo. She makes this statement not only because it shows up over and over again in Western art history and very little in any other tradition, but also because she feels it defines the relaxed combination of mathematical order and proportion on the one hand and sensuality and sinuousness on the other. She feels this combination captures to a great degree what it is to be or have grown up in the West. And that it epitomizes something that is uniquely Western in its dynamic balance as opposed to rigid balance which you see in some cultures or unabashed rhythmic sensuality in others.
However, before contrapposto evolved in Ancient Greece there was a tradition of sculpting a rigid forward looking young nude male. They were tributes to the god Apollo and they were called Kouros. It is easy to see how they evolved from Egyptian sculpture from an even older tradition where the rigid frontality of the figures were often dedicated to gods even more rigid and authoritarian than Greek’s gods.
Perhaps in part because marble, which is found in abundance in Greece, is much softer than basalt which was the stone of choice for the Egyptians, the sculpture of the ancient Greeks eventually became more sensual. It is more likely that the idea of a society that is at least in part liberal developed in Greece and which became the perfect culture in which to give birth to ideas like democracy, learning, risk taking, open and eager for new ideas, demanded a less rigid type of art. This is the culture that gave birth to these ways of thinking that have become one of the main pillars of what we call Western Civilization.
This is the same culture that decided man, based on mathematical proportions that were also developed in Greece at this time, would be the model of what a god looked like and what beauty would look like. But these people were not just mathematicians. They were robust sensual people. And before long their rigid Egyptian inspired Kouros figures leaned back on one leg, and thrust one hip sensually to one side in a posture that is both sexy and alluring on the one hand and ready to leap to action like David sizing up Goliath on the other.
Here, in this painting of solid earth we have a rigid Kouros. In “Fire” I decided to use contrapposto in hopes of catching some of the dancing rhythm of an open flame.
I consider the painting entitled “Water” to be the weakest in the series because I didn’t have any thought behind it other than the vague sense that it should be watery.
The painting of “Air” seems strong to me because it is in my mind a female contrapposto… not something you see much of in Western art. Maybe Camille Paglia, the feminist and learned art history scholar, would be pleased.
“Water”
Oil on Panel
48″ x 32″
1997 approx.
This was one of four paintings in a series of the four elements (Water, Air, Fire and Earth). This was the last of the four paintings in the series to be painted and the first to sell. I felt it was the least successful of the series. I felt this piece was a bit forced, as though the energy for creating the series had run out and I was doing this piece just to complete the dogged assignment I had set for myself. However, now that I am looking at this image after having not seen it for a few years, I feel better about it. It does appear that I succeeded in some respects that the way in which I painted the flesh is in keeping with the idea of water and flow. I wanted to stick with the basic parameters I had set for the series, which among other things was to be a torso depicted at roughly life size on a red ground. It was tempting to use a blue ground for this painting but I decided that would be too easy. Instead, I emphasized blue in the shadows and softened the edges so that the plains of the body elide into one another. I also painted the flesh itself with longer wetter strokes giving it a more curvaceous flowing feeling the way water looks in a stream where it needs to flow around rooks that protrude from the surface.
“Arvo Pärt”
Oil/Panel
5’ x 3’
1997
This was originally a triptych. At some point the other two pieces just seemed superfluous so I discarded them.
Arvo Part is a contemporary composer of so called “serious music” or what some would more loosely call Classical Music. Like many things the classifications are not entirely helpful but do give some idea of how to find his music online or in a music store. His work was introduced to me by one of my models, Richard Jessup. And his music has been inspiring me ever since.
Part is Estonian and currently lives in Berlin. In the mid 90’s when I first learned of his music it was still largely unknown but gaining in popularity very quickly. Now, his music is widely known and appreciated by almost anyone worldwide who listens to classical music. He is as close as anyone gets in the classical music world to being a star.
His spare haunting compositions are very innovative yet seriously traditional in peculiar ways. Everyone who encounters his music considers it to be deeply spiritual. It had a profound affect on building my confidence to explore the innovations and directions I was developing in my work in the mid 90’s and still to this day.
I did several portraits of Part as an homage to him but also because he has a striking look.This is the largest of them and I think most accurately captures the essence of his music.
“An Ugly Dream”
oil/panel
48” x 32”
1997. approximately
I don’t remember exactly when I painted this. I do remember the dream that inspired it. I had a dream in which I had something powerful to say. For reasons that were not clear I did not speak. Eventually yellow snake-like eels began crawling out of my mouth and ears. I began pulling them out but they kept coming. I was terrified and remember looking in the mirror over a shabby bathroom sink.
The weird vaginal creature with breasts was inspired by a tic that attached itself to my ear while hiking in the mountains. I did not realize it at first but over time it become engorged with my blood until it was big enough that I noticed. By the time I figured out that I had a tic attached to my ear, it had already grown to about the size of a peanut. Its distended abdomen was full of my blood. The front part of this image looks like a raw plucked chicken. The breasts look like the kind of breasts you see on women in pornography which adds another layer or two of revulsion. The chicken-cunt-tic also seems to be pissing which of course makes this image as about as grotesque as one could imagine. This is without a doubt the sickest and ugliest painting I have ever created. And for some reason, I love it. Perhaps because it also seems funny to me. Maybe its because I have always seen beauty and ugly as being inseparable parts of the same thing. They are intertwined as constructs in our mind. And there is no doubt that the more ugly I paint some things, the more beautiful I am able to paint something else. I could not paint the beautiful things I do without also painting these horrifically ugly things from time to time.
“Ass Fuck”
Oil on panel
6′ x 4′
1997
If something turns out well, why not make it bigger? Well, for an artist that prefers to paint larger pieces and even charges more for smaller commissions because they are, well, a pain in the ass, the answer is obvious. Especially if the smallish piece sells quickly, which it did.
But there is more to it than size. My approach to painting was shifting again. I was moving out of my black and white sculptural phase to something influenced by Lucien Freud’s work. Like Freud I was packing on the paint. The substance of the paint was becoming part of the message. And like Freud my work was becoming more carnal and coldly real, less erotic and romantic. Red was out. Pale ghostly pink was in. The drama of black was replaced with muddy flesh tones, even in the background. And the brush strokes were deliberately banal rather than virtuosic.
But the scale and the flat out sexual subject as well as the implication of action were entirely my own. The piece is nevertheless clumsy and not sorted out. I hadn’t yet figured out how to handle the paint ( some of it still following the form in what I call virtuosic painting) and the hand turned out much too small.
And for reasons I can’t explain, it didn’t sell. It wasn’t even stolen when one of my art dealers made off with over 1000 works of my art. Alas, it’s still in my racks and not once I have I considered painting over it despite its short comings.
Hawaiian Commission
6 x 4′
Oil on panel
1997
The title of this painting may seem strange for a title but that is what this was about more than the man or the painting itself. This commission was a big deal for me. By this point in my life I had been painting almost non stop in my studio under the freeway for 5 or 6 years. I was a full time artist and had not had a job in years. And, I was broke. But I was beginning to see my way out of abject poverty.
Along with the help of a patron and friend, I was able to take my first trip to Hawaii. And while there I got my first real commission….that is to say…someone commissioning me to do a painting like I would do a painting. To be sure the man in the painting is the commissioner and he had some ideas about the piece. He was insistent on the painting including a coconut and him of course. But he didn’t even stipulate how the coconut was to be included or how he would be depicted. It was implied, although not stated, that the painting would flatter him.
This was also the first time I was to do a painting outside my studio since I had really become an artist. Frankly I was worried and curious about whether I could even do it. Another friend offered his garage, showed me where to get materials and off I went. Even with the time crunch of a return ticket I was able to complete the work.
The results are a stunningly accurate depiction of the man who commissioned the piece as well as an over arching and undeniably Hawaiian feel to the piece. He was absolutely pleased. And frankly, so was I. It looks a bit brittle here in this miniaturized format. And to be sure it is sharper than work I had been producing in Seattle. But that was the point, to include the light that was intrinsically Hawaii; bright, clear and sharp.
While painting it I did a second spin off piece that became a signature work for me and which became a mini phase unto itself with many others to follow. I called it “Fire.”
“Ass”
Oil on panel
30″ x 15”
1997
Asses, and backs for that matter, are easy and fun to paint. They are generalized forms and are more unique than one might imagine. They are also liked by audiences and while an ass is potentially sexual, it is not inherently so. And as such, people bought them. And since I never made it into the art big leagues…..or for that matter even the minor leagues, it was either paint and sell paintings of asses or head out into the world in hopes of selling my actual ass. The choice was obvious.
Now, 30 years later with the advent of iPhones, Facebook, tiktok, ubiquitous porn, the popularity of Kim Kardashian and so on, America seems to have an obsession with asses. They are everywhere and bigger than ever.
Who knows, maybe I was just ahead of my time. I don’t even try to sell my art anymore. But if I did, I might be able to make quite a go of just selling big ass paintings.
