Sketchbooks and Nocturnes

24 x 25"     Oil on Linen

My studio was in chaos. I had spent the last few days varnishing and framing paintings to go out to exhibits, taking others off their stretchers to be wiped out and resurfaced, and reorganizing the shelves where I store my sketchbooks and dry colors. There was a large stack of frames on one side of the room and a stack of stretchers on another, the walls were closing in on me, my studio was getting smaller. And I was becoming desperate to paint. The paintings that I had already started were not satisfying, one from my video of nature and two small landscapes from my memory and imagination. I needed to paint from life but the table I use to set up still lifes was filled with stuff from my various projects. My easel was in the only clear space in the room so I sat down and stared at the mess in front of me. I decided to embrace the clutter.

The subject matter for my painting was a stack of sketchbooks, two nocturnes, one hanging on the wall, the other propped up on some bubble wrap, leaning against the wall and the other painting, a clear plastic box of screws, a post it notepad, a roll of blue painter’s tape, a pencil, a screwdriver, a writing pad, and a yellow invoice for some framing supplies. I was out, way, way out of my comfort zone. It would have been just a pile of clutter were it not for the light coming in from my window.

The cool north light brought unity and harmony to the collection of objects before me and I was able to see them for what they were. The nocturnes were inspired by two extraordinary evenings. Each of the sketchbooks represented important times in my life; several held drawings that I did at the Art Students League while teaching there, the leather bound volume I bought on a painting trip to Florence, and I took the portfolios to a variety of life drawing sessions over the years. The odd assortment of objects that had been carelessly left on the table were things I used to prepare my paintings for exhibitions. This was not clutter, it was my life...

 The Violinist

22 x 28"     Oil on Linen

I was introduced to classical music when I moved to New York to study painting at the Art Students League. Carnegie Hall was just down the street, and I got a job there working the concession stand to help pay my rent. I was able to watch many of the concerts and fell in love with Mozart, Beethoven, and Brahms, especially their violin pieces. I saw many of the world's greatest violinists, Itzhak Perlman and Pinchas Zukerman, Isaac Stern, the savior of Carnegie Hall, and many others, and was fascinated to watch as they played these masterpieces. The violin was often tucked under their arm as they walked on stage, but when they raised it to their shoulder and rested their cheek on the base of the instrument it became a part of their body. The bow was held gently but firmly, and as it moved across the strings it seemed to be caressing a lover. The fingers on the other hand moved with incredible dexterity sometimes pressing powerfully on the strings sometimes floating above. Their concentration was all consuming. It was something I always wanted to paint, and finally did...

 

Onions

30 x 24"     Oil on Linen

In portrait painting the artist often does his best work when he is painting his friends, so too in still life painting. These onions came from my garden. I was there when they went into the ground. I pulled out the weeds that grew up around them and watered them when it got too dry. I watched as their tops grew from spindly to tall and strong. When those tops began to weaken I pulled the bulbs from the ground and brought them into my studio to dry. I've known these onions their entire lives. Onions is not so much a still life as it is a group portrait of old friends...

Still Life with Van Gogh's Irises

30 x 36"     Oil on Linen

There is a common practice in the history of art of artists copying the work of other artists that they admire. If you were to visit the Louvre on any given day in the 19^th century you would certainly come across an artist or two making a copy. Van Gogh made copies of works by Delacroix and Millet. Picasso made many copies of works by Velazquez. Rubens copied all of the works by Titian in the collection of Phillip IV on a visit to Spain. It is a way for one artist to get inside the head of another artist, to see how they think about color and composition, to follow the rhythms of their brushwork and understand how they apply the paint to the canvas.

I have always loved the way Van Gogh painted irises and never fail to visit the version he has in the collection of the Met Museum when I am in New York. Recently I decided to make a copy of that masterpiece. Instead of making a stand alone copy, however, I decided to incorporate his painting into one of my still lifes. It was my way of not only getting into his head but also inviting him into mine. Vincent and I had many lively conversations as I worked, about space and form and luminosity, about design, about brushwork and mixing color, about rhythm and motion and vitality. I copied his way of working and showed him mine. We discussed the work of other artists and he questioned my use of books about Rembrandt and Van Dyck and suggested one about his friend Gauguin might be a better choice. In the end he was very complimentary about what I had done and I thanked him for his contribution to the piece. As we parted company we agreed to work on another painting together in the near future…

 

 Autumn

24 x 30"     Oil on Linen

Some paintings speak to you, others sing. There are portraits with whom you can have a conversation, still lifes that tell a story, landscapes that take you on a journey. But Autumn is not like that, it is not a narrative painting, it is visual music. It is not a painting that you read, it is a painting you listen to. A romantic art song, think Schubert or Schumann, written for a baritone. It is luminous and melodic, moody, with rich vibrant color. You can hear the rhythms of the leaves as they blow in the breeze, and let harmonies of the grass, trees and clouds wash over you as they express the beauty of the autumnal landscape...

 Foggy Moonrise

16 x 16"   Oil on Panel

The weather report said it was going to be a foggy night, but, no matter, I wanted to go out and see the moon. I turned off all the lights in the house and stepped outside. It was like stepping off the earth and into a cloud. As I walked away from the house it disappeared into the fog. The trees that I knew to be in front of me had lost their form, lost their shape, and were now just dark tones at the bottom of the cloud. I was living in an abstract painting, there was no foreground or background. Except for the fact that my feet were still attached to the earth I could have been floating in space. I watched as the density of the fog ebbed and flowed, sometimes allowing the trees to be more visible, sometimes less. It was such an intense experience that I had completely forgotten about the moon. Not a sound could be heard, even the crickets were quiet. It was not so much an eerie silence as it was a peaceful calm. Suddenly there was a gentle breeze, the fog thinned a bit above the dark tones of the trees, allowing the moon to make a brief appearance. I watched in awe as it struggled to be seen, radiating moonbeams through the misty shroud…