Mike’s* hands at rest, were very delicate. I’m sure they still are. I haven’t seen him in a long time, since I moved to California, quite a distance from where he lives. Below is a photo I shot during a visit to his old group home. While his hands are a strong visual element here, […]
Matisse, his Notes of a Painter he does not endorse working purely from nature or purely from imagination. He states, “… I think that one can judge the vitality and power of an artist who, after having received impressions directly from the spectacle of nature, is able to organize his sensations to continue his work in […]
For the longest time, the bowl of cacti sat by the side of the house. Most of the other plants in my cactus/succulent garden had died. I thought the cacti were dead too. They were half submerged in the dirt, gray looking, no green anywhere. I put the round pot back in the sunlight on […]
I think of free form drawing as a smooth, easy going process. The hand wanders, the pencil or pen follows and makes a record of the languid movements. The mind empties of thoughts. Today’s visual record betrays an agitated state of mind. Outlines are repeated, even scrubbed into the page. Smooth, over-lined contours threaten to […]
For a change of pace, I will return to portraits of my brother Mike for a while. He is autistic, low functioning and nonverbal. Mike currently lives in a geriatric group home back east. I took photos of him for many years; since I moved away I’ve been painting compositions related to my experience with […]
I like this double portrait. I kept the lines simple, as I imagine Paul Klee would have done. I think I was able to capture some emotion in this portrait.
I’ve mentioned before that both my parents loved music. Dad let my older brother Mike* play on the piano and I’m sure they played classical music records all the time when he was around. For a time Mike responded. I’m told he could hum entire movements from symphonies. By the time I came on the scene, Mike […]
The theme of today’s experiment is the same as yesterday’s: the difference between what is inside one’s mind and what can be expressed. Generally speaking, this difference (that I call ‘pressure’) is the impetus for creativity. An artist must somehow regulate the release of pressure in a manner pleasing to himself or herself.
I recently bought a turntable that has a computer connection. Now comes the fun part: recording hundreds of my vinyl records that I bought in the 1970s and 1980s. Most of my long playing records are folk music: Irish ulleann bagpipes pipes; English Northumbrian folksongs; Jewish Klezmer music; Old Timey (pre-bluegrass) American music; French hurdy […]
