Most recently I’m making paintings depicting people walking their dogs. These paintings are as much about place and time as the humans and dogs that populate them. During a residency in Vermont, I continued the series, extending beyond my neighborhood. I began approaching local dog-walkers the day I arrived. I found that this was a wonderful way to immerse myself into a community. People with dogs are easy to approach. They feel safe and are comfortable talking about their animals. I got to know the local residents very quickly. I continued the series in Cortona, Italy where I was teaching last spring. I hope to do this in many locales, to keep making these connections.
I’m attracted to the theatre played out on the front porches, streets, and yards of my funky, diverse, low income neighborhood, New Town. I’m interested in the everyday chance encounters in parking lots and the grocery store line. I attempt to recreate in paint fleeting glimpses of this life that for me is very real, powerful, human, flawed, often humorous and always amazing. As children we were admonished not to stare. It is my belief that staring is the first step toward understanding.
My painting style is as awkward and flawed as the subject matter. The intense heat and light of the south are often expressed in my palette. I never have a clear notion of what my paintings will become. One mark leads to the next, just as chance encounters inspire. The characters in my paintings are complete when I fall in love with them. The painting is complete when there is no next mark.
At a time when the world seems full of disaster and despair, I can no longer listen to the radio or look at a newspaper without feeling a sense of hopelessness. I’m now making a concerted effort to seek out positive examples of love and affection in an attempt to restore my faith in humankind … as a kind of antidote to the bad news I can’t seem to avoid.
Originally, I envisioned a series of paintings depicting people shaking hands. The lines from the George Weiss, Bob Thiele song made famous by Louis Armstrong, "What A Wonderful World", captured my imagination ---
I see friends shaking hands
Saying ‘How do you do?’
They’re really saying
‘I love you’
The handshake proved to be problematic compositionally … all those human H shapes weren't working on the canvas. Instead, I’ve chosen the embrace as a symbol for fondness and adoration. I’m delighting in the geometry of the shape of two bodies as one: two heads and four arms intertwined - a reminder of the importance of touch.
While I in no way intend to trivialize or deny life’s grave realities, I do not feel that I am alone in the need to (at least temporarily) shift focus, find and share joy.
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