Arielle

20 x 16   Oil on Linen

I like to listen to what I’m painting, to hear what I see. Being a romantic it often sounds Brahmsian or Chopinesque. But when Arielle came to pose for me I heard something quite different. It was more intense, a bit startling, like Stravinsky. There was a rhythmic energy to her pose. As I composed my painting it came to me as shapes and patterns rather than forms and dimension. The colors were harmonically dissonant and more chromatically intense than I usually paint. My brushwork came in quick, punchy strokes instead of my customary long legato lines. I continued to listen as I painted and tried to keep control of the orchestra of colors playing wildly on my palette. I may have been dancing with the devil, but my painting had a fresh, modern liveliness…not unlike Arielle herself.....

Quoddy Head, Maine

24 x 34 Oil on Linen

A few years ago, quite a few years ago, I had a yearning to paint the sea, to paint waves, really big waves. So I packed my landscape easel and headed off to Maine, to Acadia National Park. It's my favorite place for seascape painting, partly because it is so beautiful and partly because it is public. There is nothing worse than finding a beautiful place to paint and then have someone tell you "You can't paint here, this is private property." I stayed a few days and painted even though it was misty the whole time and consequently no big waves. Then proceeded to drive up the coast hoping to get out of the persistent fog. I stopped in Lubec because Quoddy Head State Park was there and I could stroll along the public coastline. The fog had indeed gotten thicker but I was determined to paint. There is a lighthouse there that is situated on the easternmost point of the United States, I sallied forth and set up my easel. The fog was now so heavy that I couldn't see the lighthouse but I decided to work anyway thinking that when the fog burned off I could dash in the lighthouse in a few strokes. All I could see in front of me was my easel. I thought of Philip Glass and how, with the wide range of notes available to him, he would pick out a few notes and repeat them over and over and over again, and I thought with all the beautiful colors on my palette I was now repeating the same few tones over and over and over again, and my mind began to see shapes and patterns in the dense fog and I tried to get that variety in my painting as I repeated those few tones over and over and over again, and then the shapes and patterns became rocks and a footpath and I realized the fog had softened to mist and I had a few more tones and colors to work with, Philip Glass gave way to Claude Debussy and there were delicate melodies and harmonies, and the endless repetition became a tone poem. Everything was lovely and peaceful and wonderful even though I never saw the lighthouse and there never were any waves, any really big waves.....