“Binary Gender Types”
I came across a collage I made in 1989. It was made from 2 ads from a magazine. It’s not only interesting on its face but the fact that I made it in 1989 is also interesting to me.
I want to make a painting of this. I used an editing feature to altar the image a bit.
Recently I threw a Halloween Party. This person showed up. I asked permission if I could take their picture with the idea of making a painting from it. It’s perfect.
“Circle of Dreamers”
Size will ideally be “life size” on 6’ pedestals.
Concrete
2023
This is an idea for a massive project consisting of 12 life size figures sculpted in concrete and then arranged in a large circle. Each figure would be created and formed with its pedestal rather than made separately and set on it. The figures will be just above eye level with various arms and legs descending into the viewer’s space. They would be arranged in a large circle with enough space between them for viewers to walk in and out of the circle in between each figure meaning that all the figures can be seen in the round. The middle of the arrangement would have a tiered empty Dias that viewers could climb on to so that they could look down on the sculptures surrounding them.
The figures are all meant to be sleeping or preparing to sleep in varying degrees of discomfort and pleasure. The only one that is not alone is the mother and child group on one of the pedestals.
So far I have created a clay sketch of each one approximately 12” x 8″. These were all created without a model and without too much concern for scale. In the final project it will be important for all of the figures to be the same scale. Some will be bigger and smaller. But they should all be the same scale.
My intention is to work with models to create half life size versions in clay. Then, make the concrete sculptures with the clay models serving as a guide to the concrete work. The concrete full size versions will be made quickly with the help of assistants due to the size and nature of the material.
I will developer the 12 dreamers over the next year or so. I don’t yet have a facility suitable for this kind of concrete work.
“Valtesse”
Sketches for large paintings
2023
For 3 years in a row I hosted a performance group to set up a residency in my theater for a 3 week Halloween Show run. They were a very professional group with Hollywood level costumes and inventive acts. There were many paintable moments. Here are 2 sketches for paintings I want to do someday.
“Coyote Dream”
Likely to be 8’ x 6’
Canvas
Completed. Please see “Figurative 2021-2022”.
I shot this photo in my studio in 2005 or so. Coyote is the nam d’plume of my friend Eric. He was a gifted poet and performer and the very embodiment of the aging Pryiapus struggling to sacrifice his lust to a higher power, not through sublimation but rather through direct surrender to the goddess of youth and sexual desire….in this case embodied by another friend, Alexis.
My intention has always been to do a large painting inspired by this photo. And my desire to do so was increased a few years ago when Eric passed away due to complications with Advanced Parkinson’s and Diabetes. But time and energy never combined in just the right ways to take this on.
It would seem easy enough to make a grand painting from such a well composed photograph that additionally captures so much of the nuance of this delicate story. And to be sure, it does help….a lot. But it is so easy for a piece like this to fall short. It would be not worth the canvas it’s painted on if it merely becomes a faithful enlargement of the photograph. No, I need to embed even the most banal stretches of black background with the vibrancy that Eric used to speak of with respect to his poetry…..”a dynamic balance”. And the body language and expressions need to go beyond what is conveyed in the 1/4” square inch of film in the photograph.
I know these people. Or rather, I used to know them. Eric died. And Alexis moved to Salt Lake City and got married. But they are very much alive in my memory. In part, their place in my mind is so vivid because of the quality and intensity of the time we spent together. This painting will be an expansion of those times, hopefully…if I do my job right….enriched by memory and the experiences I have had since then, informed by the insights and ideas that Coyote and Alexis’ playful escapades inspired.
I’m writing this in the summer of 2022 on a vacation in Thailand. I am watching a daily parade of my aging peers struggling with their own aging Pryapus proclivities and by appearances…mostly failing. It’s both painful and comic to watch and be part of. This might be the final kick in the pants needed to set me to work on such a grand picture of what triumph through surrender looks like.
“Coyote Dream”
Likely to be 8’ x 6’
Canvas
Likely 2022
I shot this photo in my studio in 2005 or so. Coyote is the nam d’plume of my friend Eric. He was a gifted poet and performer and the very embodiment of the aging Pryiapus struggling to sacrifice his lust to a higher power, not through sublimation but rather through direct surrender to the goddess of youth and sexual desire….in this case embodied by another friend, Alexis.
My intention has always been to do a large painting inspired by this photo. And my desire to do so was increased a few years ago when Eric passed away due to complications with Advanced Parkinson’s and Diabetes. But time and energy never combined in just the right ways to take this on.
It would seem easy enough to make a grand painting from such a well composed photograph that additionally captures so much of the nuance of this delicate story. And to be sure, it does help….a lot. But it is so easy for a piece like this to fall short. It would be not worth the canvas it’s painted on if it merely becomes a faithful enlargement of the photograph. No, I need to embed even the most banal stretches of black background with the vibrancy that Eric used to speak of with respect to his poetry…..”a dynamic balance”. And the body language and expressions need to go beyond what is conveyed in the 1/4” square inch of film in the photograph.
I know these people. Or rather, I used to know them. Eric died. And Alexis moved to Salt Lake City and got married. But they are very much alive in my memory. In part, their place in my mind is so vivid because of the quality and intensity of the time we spent together. This painting will be an expansion of those times, hopefully…if I do my job right….enriched by memory and the experiences I have had since then, informed by the insights and ideas that Coyote and Alexis’ playful escapades inspired.
I’m writing this in the summer of 2022 on a vacation in Thailand. I am watching a daily parade of my aging peers struggling with their own aging Pryapus proclivities and by appearances…mostly failing. It’s both painful and comic to watch and be part of. This might be the final kick in the pants needed to set me to work on such a grand picture of what triumph through surrender looks like.
“Elephant on Ice”
Probably 8’ x 6”
Canvas
Completed. Please see “Figurative 2021-2022”.
A lone polar bear stranded on a melting piece of ice in the middle of a deep blue sea has become the poster child of climate change. And why not? The oceans are warming and this is destroying the habitat of these magnificent creatures. And, since they are both so cute and so terrifying they are definitely great eye catchers and attention getters.
That is why an elephant on a chunk of melting ice is such a good idea. Elephants are also threatened by the ways of humankind. And elephants are also great poster children. They get attention. But I would argue they are even more interesting to most people than polar bears. Humans have a long complex relationship with elephants. We hunt them for trophies. We venerate them as gods. We think of them as almost human in their intelligence and social skills.
And like polar bears and melting ice caps, their decline is a very visible sign of climate change. So why not put one on a melting pedestal.
Am I making any comment about a melting Republican Party……hmmm….I’ll need to give that more thought.
“Woman”
Ideally 10’ high
Wood. Preferably a dark hard wood.
Hopefully soon.
When I did an internet search for “large nude female sculpture” I found pages of smallish and decidedly kitch statuettes. There were a few classical pieces from antiquity sprinkled in with mass produced pour cast garden statuary. And, even an occasional monstrosity, but nothing anywhere near as serious and relevant as what I am proposing.
It has always bothered me that Michelangelo’s “David” has no serious female counterpart. His “david” is noteworthy to me in the subject, the scale and the psychological complexity. In the Bible David is from a race of people overpowered by a dominate race that threatens genocide on the Jews. And even though the sculpture is nearly a colossus, In the story he is small compared to his opponent, Goliath. And, unlike most depictions of David seen victorious over Goliath’s dead body, here we see David steeling himself for the confrontation, the very picture of reason and mind over brute strength. And so beautifully done you can not take your eyes off it.
Well, I want to carve a larger than life size Black woman who girds herself for battle against a culture that threatens her for the same reason Goliath threatened David and his people, because of his race and culture and beliefs. She doesn’t have a weapon like David who incidentally does have a weapon, a sling, but it is so small it’s only real purpose in the statue is an iconographic necessity. No, her weapon is her body and more specifically, the way her mind and soul animate her body. Her defiance, her compassion. Her intellect and soul fullness.
I will borrow heavily from Michelangelo and as he did, the ancient Greeks for similar reasons, that intuitively we all understand that the nude when presented with noble intentions is the most powerful way to present the dignity and power of the individual and the integration of reason and passion. It is, in the visual arts, the most powerful form of harmony. There are moments throughout Western Art where this thread of the noble nude pops up….and in between is a lot of pornography and kitsch. Nothing wrong with pornography and kitsch. But it’s not the same.
Unlike Michelangelo’s “David” my statue will be carved to be seen in the round rather than from one position, the front. This is significant because it implies a smoother flow of one part to another rather than the more distinctive open and shut compartmentalization of
“David.” And mine will be carved in wood rather than stone. Wood is organic and closer to a living organism than marble which to be sure also has a life force. But the sculpting itself will be faster and that will change the way the parts move and flow into each other the way the views will as one moves around the piece.
Even though she will be wood, which has more tinsel strength than stone, she will need something that strengthens the connection of her body to the plinth that she stands on. In Michelangelo’s piece there is a tree stump that fulfills this purpose and also adds both an erotic touch as well as augers for Christ’s death on the cross….David is part of the lineage that leads to Christ.
I’m not sure yet what my women will have to strengthen her as well as advance the concept.
My next step is to create a near life size version in some forgiving material such as clay or softwood. At that scale I can work out some additional details. She will be in contra-posto. And she will be looking down slightly. She will also have dreadlocks She will also probably be wearing some kind of jewelry since her weapon is her culture expressed mainly through her body. But a necklace or hair adornment could add something without diminishing her singular purpose.
And like “David” she will not be shy about her sexual power, expressed like David through its matter-of-factness rather than something exaggerated or affected.
And finally, she will be older than David. David is a youth about to blossom into manhood. My woman will be fully in her womanhood.
“Clarity and Purchase”
Various media
2022
There is a body of my work that a friend calls “mythic figurative.” I’ve always liked that moniker. It seems right. This body of my work is not central but runs almost constantly in the background in my sketches. I don’t sketch everyday, but nearly so. And then, every so often, I do a bunch of paintings inspired by these explorations.
Recently my sketches look like I am thinking a lot about the relationship between charity and profit or the difference between charity and purchase. Here are a bunch of photographs of my sketch book done in late July early August during my trip to Thailand, Cambodia and Indonesia. When I return to Seattle I intend to explore these ideas in paint.
“Richard”
Digital photo. 2019
Richard has been a model for me since 1995. He is a professional dancer and theater director. It has been a blessing to work with him all of these years.
I shot this piece in what was at that time my new studio. The idea was for a painting which I did from a different set of photos from this same shoot. But this photo has haunted me ever since. Now that I am doing sculpture with more focus I know what to do with this image.
I will make a sculpture in clay inspired by this and then cast it in plaster. It will be a weird comment on Bologna’s famous “Mercury” sculpture which is the epitome of grace and balance.
Illustration of Bologna's Mercury Sculpture
