Resting after a day's work; I am in the middle of making a new painting dealing with mixing an abstract idea of balloons and a figure on a cell phone with blending in a setting sun with shadows added. I like giving myself problems then getting to work solving those very same problems in paint. Soon to be working on a daily basis my summer break is only two weeks away and I am planning to get outdoors to show the great countryside of Nelson County to the world. (or whomever takes a look at this blog) So stay tuned, and be patient with me the work will be coming fast and furious

soon.

Vincent

The summer break had me thinking about Vincent Van Goth, the artist truly knew little about rest, he works number in the hundreds when there is nearly enough time for him to have finished but a few paintings. As a friend put it; "if anything he was a workhorse" he produced nine hundred paintings in just nine years, it's taken me decades (more than one) to do life and finish more than seven hundred, here in this work of mine I remember his style and efforts. As most people do, when one not well versed in art thinks of their favorite painting the painting "Starry Starry Night" most often comes to mind. This is my tribute to him and his work.

Trees 2012

Sometimes it pays to simply wait and let the clouds part from our view. They have to evaporate ya know and it's not something one can force. So sometimes when one is stuck from having subjects to paint one falls back upon old subject matter, that's where this painting comes from, it's a tried and true subject matter for me. I think I'm getting a little better at it now. If one compares it to some older tree paintings I do think this one is a little better. But I'll leave that to history to judge, that is if history wishes to remember me and my art in the first place. It's kind of pompous of me to think that people would but people have been very kind and they do surprise me from the perspective of who and how they like my artwork. So I'll stand aside when it comes time for those who appreciate my art to talk about it.

Family Of Trippel Painted by Fourth Generation

Looking at art one sometimes comes upon an idea when visiting an art museum, such was the case of how this painting came about; One day I went to the back galleries of the Philadelphia Art Museum when I was living up their, I happen to come upon some B/W paintings done by Robert Indiana. They were somewhat eerier due to the fact that they were all of people long since dead plus they were all painted in Black and White no other colors at all were used by R. Indiana. The paintings were taken from old family photo albums and executed on large canvases but had no other colors other than black, white and gray. At first I thought that they were rather ugly and had no "life in them" but they did stick in my mind and have done so for years now.
Funny thing about art, sometimes one finds work that is sired upon one's memory and no matter what one does to forget about a painting, a film or a book one can't do so. Such were this series of paintings that were hanging in the Museum gallery of R. Indiana's family. Now I know knowledge shared is knowledge gone, but this knowledge had to have an redux and so I did this painting myself of my early family in the good old USA in Brooklyn of all places. This is my great grand father whom I never met but have a great deal of reverence for and then there in this photo is my grandfather whom I did meet. He was a happy old guy with me, and I loved him and his wife my grandma very well. Then pictured as the young boy that he is is my own father as a toddler in the bottom of the photo. He's dapper isn't he now? Ha! Who couldn't see how Robert Indiana couldn't find these old family photos a gas to work on as subject matter for his paintings. And so did I!

New Oil: "All of a Sudden: He Just Floated Away"

I enjoy my life much more today because of a fellowship call Narcotics Anonymous, it's responsible for my reclaiming myself and my life. Two of my closest friends from years ago said to me (in all confidence now) that they thought I was insane. My trouble was and still is I don't see through their eyes but I live within my own skin and thus I make myself as comfortable as I can and I feel sane or that I have a healthy approach to life, mentally I feel really good and always have felt healthy. But when one realizes that it's not just oneself but others who create 'reality' one can see that as Oscar Wilde said "no man is an island" . With that said, I felt ok but my existence around me didn't see me as being so healthy. Well nothing changed that until I got clean in NA. It's then I had a look at myself and what I really had done instead of what I was thinking I had done and appeared. My two good friends were brave enough to tell me the truth as they saw me, and I thank them for it.
Today with NA, I see "life as it was" and " my life since getting clean" in one stream. That's what this painting is about, my life clean is one with going to many meetings such as that group of people sitting on a dock. The spirit of these meetings brings many to a place not found by ordinary means, and that is why the man is stepping off the dock and floating into the air. The twelve steps in the back ground are the means by which we all learn not to be that person who wants to "use" outside influences to change ourselves. Then there is "my life clean" which is symbolized by those guys flying balloons and kites which are fun to fly. They are showing that being clean can be fun if we let it and get involved with something that is just done for the fun of it.
I am grateful for my Recovery and I paint about it because I was told and artist or author aught to " work on things that one knows most about, what one's life consist of" and for this artist "Recovery Lives Everyday" in my life.

Mov'n on with Art

It's been too long since I last put down an entree into this blog but I'll tell ya moving will make one exausted if nothing else: that's my excuse and I'm stick'n to it. I have finished one painting and I'm working upon completing another and I ought to be done in just a few days. School is crank'n along too, there is words being spoken about 'graduation' among other end of the school year rhetoric ....and so my thoughts are turning to the subject of "what are you going to be doing this summer?" And with that I will turn my thoughts to plans for what is going to interest my brush and palette during our summer break. But first there is this canvas I am working on now, it is a joy to be doing so in such a fine spot as my new home is,,,how wonderful a feeling it is to paint in sunlight from a large window in the morning with an idea of where one wants to go with "it".
Until later on...when I post my newest one... most likely next week sometime, so stay tuned...don't change that channel as they use to say.

Home

Here it is!