Paris
24 January 2009
Napoleon Bonapart's tomb
The marble used in the sarcophagus of Napoleon is the color of the moon in a total eclipse...I call it a deep Tomato Soup Red
French Inspiration
Travel leads to education. For any visual artist there are those singular moments of inspiration and connection (like the view from 27,000 ft above the Atlantic) that remain throughout a productive period of painting. The first moment I saw a small pond on the edge of the then not-fully restored Shakertown in Kentucky (Pleasant Hill) in the early 70s I looked down into a watery surface through the brambles hiding the pond and after realizing the water was full of red floating particles I waved my arms to sweep the thicket from my face inadvertantly surprising the goldfish to skatter and move through the water. Fast-forward a few years and realize that seeing city-size oil tankers (remember when they were called "super tankers"?) floating on the Atlantic beneath my jet looking like goldfish shapes....
The view from the train, along the route from Marseilles to Avignon, at L'Estaque completed the imagery for the paintings you will see on this blog (scroll down)...here are a few glimpses of that moment but not quite matching in actual color the intensity of that moment. So now when I gaze into the small koi pool in my garden I see a reflection of a gigantic UPS flight turning overhead on its approach to the hub and runways just twelve miles north in Louisville.
23 January 2009
Central Park, July 1976
John and Yoko and Sean, the family, in Central Park West: the day after John gets his "green" card.
22 January 2009
Andy Warhol
standing in front of the "other" graphic prints in the Whitney Museum of American Art, NYC...
Central Park, July 1976
winter news: John and Yoko and Sean, the family in Central Park West, NYC, the day after receiving his GREEN CARD. No thanks to Richard Nixon.
21 January 2009
Bernheim Forest 1980
Kingfisher Pond at Bernheim Forest and Arboretum, KY
inspiration for many paintings and graphic designs through the 80s and beyond
Bernheim, unfortunately, redesigned this pool due to ground seepage and architectural growth behind the stable lily pond; now there is a pond liner, a small overlook deck after dismantling the Japanese-like footbridge
Derby Box, 1983 textile sculpture
hand screen printed cotton, acetate, sewn, fiber filled sculptural form
Surface Design Association merit award
L'Estaque, View From the Train
winter news: 1982 oil and acrylic on canvas
similar paintings in the collections of the Evansville Museum of Arts and Science; Coca Cola Schmidt Corporate Collection Elizabethtown, KY; private collection Massachusetts and "L'Estaque II" selected Merit Award by Dr. Harry Rand, Smithsonian DC
not Shepard Fairey
winter news: a thank you to graphic artist Shepard Fairey for proving two points about art in America, or anywhere on earth for that matter: 1) graphic images have power 2)America must invest in its artists AGAIN (i.e. WPA) but without the narrowminded, red-hunting millionaires who destroyed the Diego Rivera in Rockerfeller Center.
THAT IS HOW POWERFUL ART IS, even in a country where an artist often cannot survive on the merit of this non-profit vocation. Art is a calling, it is not a job... a duty like breathing, believing and BEING. We are the patchwork of humanity.
Shepard Fairey and Keith Haring were once arrested in this free country for the street art they left behind. Watch what corporate America does to the artist's soul. Regardless, the art speaks to WE THE PEOPLE. That is what public education still fails to teach its children. Art is more powerful that any weapon of mass destruction, and as universal as prayer.
Teach peace through the medium.
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