BABY
The more I worked with images of a child, the more I related to the verses of the Walt Whitman poem, “There Was A Child Went Forth Every Day”:
There was a child went forth every day,
And the first object he looked upon and received with wonder or pity or love or dread, that object he became,
And that object became part of him for the day or a certain part of the day . . . . or for many years or stretching cycles of years.
MOVEMENT
ANTIQUITY
MENAGERIE
ANALOG
About Me
The greatest teacher is experience and I have many valued moments in the arts and among artists. Formally the classes at the Art Students League of New York grounded my drawing. The art history degree from Fordham University provided the context and exposed the motivations and creativity of the artists both ancient and modern.
As much experience as was gained through formal training, the most valued came from a small group of mentors:
• Mark Roberts of Minneapolis generously shared his knowledge of photography, including the techniques, history, and talent within the photographic community.
• The music conductor and writer Robert Craft provided the incalculable gift of knowledge and reason. The transfer of knowledge I received came while typing his essays and cataloging the collection of music, art, and ephemera that originally belonged to Igor Stravinsky. The essays I typed covered subjects ranging from early music, the art of Piero della Francesca, the mathematics of Benoît Mandelbrot and the lived connections to the literature of the time.
• I learned all about the French Belle Époque while working for Laura Gold at her Park South Gallery at Carnegie Hall.
• The ChaShaMa organization and Anita Durst provided space in Times Square for my solo exhibit and was a moment of great personal growth.
• My most beloved mentor, Rick Sheinmel, furnished an entrée into the world of the actor, the theater, and the human condition. While he acted on New York’s downtown experimental stage, I sat in the audience drinking up the uniquely presented truths of the human condition.
All this and much more have shaped my creative experience.
Currently I live in Hell’s Kitchen, New York City, with my partner of thirty years, Rick Sheinmel.
My Art
As long as I can remember I have been drawing, painting, and collecting clippings and ephemera from the made world, especially those that resonated with me as specific ideas or feeling.
Over time, I intuitively augmented these found materials. Using impulsive gestural elements and the use of primary colors, I can apply layers and color to produce multiple outcomes. The layer hierarchy of a drawing, a photo, or clipping changes the outcome of the finished image in exciting ways. Hundreds of manipulations in size, colors or texture are made within the hierarchy and to each layer. This shuffling and changing goes on until an a-ha moment is achieved.
The transposition of the collected images onto paper or canvas can be replicated in the digital space. The size of the digital image, determined by pixel resolution, allows for great latitude. There are ideal dimensions meant to be seen at close range, and then there are prints that are ideally viewed at a distance. I think of the great French artist Georges Seurat and his pointillist masterpiece La Grande Jatte. At close range the points of color dominate, but at greater distance, the more unified the color and shapes become. That means the larger the print, the more pixelation is visible.
I outsource my giclée prints to a high-quality print service that transfers images onto canvas, rag paper, acrylic panel, or aluminum.
Within these collections movement in time and space is explored. The resonance of the finished image is personal and accessible to the viewer.
On the journey the artist sleeps, dreams, awakens, and set about putting it all before you—the audience.
I like how Theodore Rothke speaks of this journey in his poem The Waking:
I wake to sleep, and take my waking slow.
I feel my fate in what I cannot fear.
I learn by going where I have to go.