WHY?

Good question. Mostly because I need to. Certainly not for the money. Art answers a need in me to get this stuff out. I love the feeling of "not being there" when I get involved in it. My self takes a vacation and what's left is allowed to freely create. When you do a thing you love to do you notice suddenly that four or five hours have gone by... you must have been having fun, and you never missed your self and all of its cares and complaints... and usually the result is a good painting, because your decision making ability stays operative and is even sharpened by the lack of noise and interference from the self.

HOW?

At present I'm usually working from a scale drawing that I've done specifically for the canvas I plan to work on. I sometimes underpaint the canvas (apply a layer of color on the raw canvas) before I transfer the drawing. I transfer the drawing to the canvas, making needed changes as I go. A clean brush, some new colors and I'm ready to go. Turn up the music and dive in.

WHAT? Most of what's in the gallery at present are stretched canvas acrylic paintings.

MEANING?

I have disappointed some who have asked me, "What were you trying to say in this painting?" or, "What does this mean?" I believe that excellent art, fine art, involves a balance between discipline and imagination. Discipline in art includes the mastering of the basic skills needed to produce excellence; composition, line, edge, color, scale etc. Imagination is in part the willingness and ability to cross boundaries of visual convention, a sense of irony, juxtaposition, humor, to be ready to "confront and deal with reality by using the creative power of the mind". It also involves intuition. Imagination without discipline yields mediocrity, nonsense or worse. Discipline without imagination is boring and lifeless. In my opinion, much "modern" art falls into one or the other error. I believe that it is an artist's responsibility to learn and master his/her craft. This takes a long time and lots of work. My paintings are for the most part making comments on those elements above. Every painting can be boiled down to a series of decisions - is this the right color/size/shape/edge treatment/kind of line, context etc. for this area? I do not have an agenda or fixed point of view beyond my conviction that beauty (as opposed to prettiness) is transcendent and necessary for a rich life, not passe or only for the sentimental, that visual puns and irony and double entendres are fun, and that like people, art that takes itself too seriously is a real drag.