happy happy

Busy summer so far, and by far the highlight was my nephew's wedding last Saturday. Long road trip to Ohia, lotsa family, canoe misadventures, blue herons everywhere. Seriously, on the blue herons thing. Anyway, my son was ring bearer, my nephew's two sisters and brother were also in the wedding, and the bride is wonderful. All the best to them, and they know who they are [I don't post names of friends and family here]. And thanks to them, and her family, and my brother and sister in law, for a beautiful weekend.

Small Driveway

1998, oil on canvas, 24x32in. Private collection, Cleveland, Ohio.

This was not really a study, or something done in preparation for the larger version, but instead it was something I executed quickly while the larger work was in progress. Even though it's also from memory, it has a more naturalistic, offhand feel than the big painting, so I think it was just a matter of following an urge I didn't follow in the other version.

Driveway

1997-9, oil on canvas, 66x78in.

One of the biggest paintings I've ever made, after a friend gave me this collossal set of stretcher bars he'd salvaged from his job as an art mover. I think they'd belonged to Jim Dine or somebody and he was tossing them. Anyway, I worked on this for a few years, at about the same time I was working on the smaller still life paintings. This was kind of a machine for me, a synthesis of the memory-based landscapes and the observational still lifes, and while making it I was thinking all the time of Matisse's large decorative works from the early teens or so.

The image is a scan of a slide, which doesn't always work too well, I've found.

Some more old stuff

Upside-down Tricycle (1992), oil on canvas, 30x30in.

Tireswing (1992), oil on canvas, 40x40in.

Lawn chairs and backstoop (1992), oil on canvas, 50x50in.

Porch (1992), oil on canvas, 60x36in.

Way (1993), oil on canvas, @32x42in.

Tireswing, Porch, and Way were all in my thesis show. For more about my days at Pratt, what I was thinking and doing, see the previous post. Tireswing is now in a private collection in Brooklyn. My mother always said the little boy reminded her of one of my brothers.

Take me back

Four Houses, 1992-3, oil on canvas, @40x60in.

Recently had some old slides scanned to digital and, although they are not always the best quality, I'll be posting some of them here, and you can also see them in my picasa albums, link to the right. This splashy thing was a part of my MFA Thesis exhibition at Pratt Institute in the spring of 1993, and is now tucked away in a storage locker on Flatbush a few blocks from my studio. Very much in thrall to the Bay Area Figurative painters of the 50's and 60's back then, especially Richard Diebenkorn, by far the best of the lot. And also starting to come more and more under the influences of de Kooning and Matisse, but more on that later. I was learning to paint, obviously, and I was in love with the splash and the sturm, etc. I was, what, 24 or 25 when I was painting this one. My god, that's young.


Four Houses is based on a photo of a row of houses in the neighborhood where I grew up in Toledo, viewed from Highland Park, looking across South Avenue. I was big into exploring images from childhood back then, toys and houses and fields. More to come.