My sculptures are an acquired taste, which I am fine with. The personal appeal of then for me is in their looseness. Unlike my other visual mediums, there is a large component of improvisation to them. Materials help dictate composition.
Currently I am in middle of two projects which are taking up the lion’ share of space in my studio. I can not start a new Cinefield®. I do miss process. I knew that I could do a regular collage and it would not encroach upon other things going on space & time wise.
This is a collage, not Cinefield® because unlike the later, I did not create the base images. Rarely now do I work in the medium of collage utilizing images not from pictures which I personally took. Like my sculptures, this gave me the same pleasure derived from loose improvisation. This rare occurrence of using other’s images is akin to jazz great playing a standard, someone else’s melody providing the frame work for their voice to flow.
The piece is 7×10 inches. No digital magic just scissors & adhesive applied with a brush.
Female of the Species
It is not often that I mention things of mine available for purchase. I have teamed up with a great framer & photo lab to produce a series of extremely limited edition Cinefield® prints. The info can be found here. Once they are gone, that is it.
I now have two printers. One is black and white and used just for text. The other is a high-grade/hi def photo printer for my visual work.
As I went to print up the first of these 8’s I forgot to toggle the switch so that it printed on regular paper in black and white. I actually liked it and so am including it here. The other black and white image was an element of chance occurrence, I lifted the paper up and the unfastened components formed the face. It’s looser than my intentional 8’s but I still liked it.
I am always seeking models for the series as it continues to be ongoing. When I am not the one taking the photos, they are done specifically for me (as opposed to found images). There’s no digital magic just my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with brush.
this was by chance composition when all parts not glued down slid during moving paper
Once again, I sought to challenge myself with my Cinefield® as to avoid lapsing into mere mannerism. As with my last piece, I went with a limited color palette, in this case one reminiscent of some of the submariner greens Degas used. I also stuck to sea changing via my cutting, only one image.
I was pleased with the results. As is the case with all my work, I only use images which I personally took the photo(s) of. There is never any digital magic as I utilize the traditional method of my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with a brush.
My In the Eights series has garnered an audience which I am pleased about. My one reservation, using found images to take my trusty scissors to, has become a non issue as people now volunteer to model. As it is an ongoing project, i am always open to new models. Email me for details.
They are meant to be beautiful but also slightly off putting. One part H.P Lovecraft and one part Impressionist painting.
As always, there is no digital magic, just trusty scissors and adhesive applied with a brush. roughly 3×5. Special thanks to model Beauty
I never want to repeat myself. There are some of my direct peers whose works I enjoy but after knowing them for a few years came the feeling that once you had seen a few of their pieces, you have seen it all. One way to sidestep this is by constantly mixing things up, leaving one’s comfort zone.
For myself, I do this by shaking up my methodology, intentionally putting aside things which I know will work procedurally or which I have done already a few times.
I always like to have my work possess a sort of open ended quality so that the viewer feels that there is a story within but it is up to each person to decide what it is.
This time I changed that up making a work which is intentionally programmatic.
The two books i return to time and again over the course of my life are Homer and Dante. I am far from the first artist in visual arts or letters to find inspiration within the pages of these two works. The appeal for all of us is that they offer so many possibilities of dramatic moments. And even two artists showing the same scene will present two completely different works.
I did not choose a specific scene from Dante. Instead, it is the idea of him following the shade of Virgil, seeing all the shades in their free falls on their way to the various rings.
I only used images for which i personally took the photos. The very bottom section is water rather than flames/lava. I felt that any kind of flame thing would be a little too on the nose, also i had not taken photos of any flames. As always, there is no digital magic. I just used my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with a brush.
Sheltering in place (still), I used whatever materials I had in hand. With all the figures, I got some cardboard, from packages delivered and constructed a little stage. I then painted it white. I painted each figure, applying different coats as to get color variations of darker and lighter blues and reds. I then took photos of the figures from various angles as to have it seem a myriad of different types of people rather than merely the five or six. Top views, side views etc, further create the effect of many types of people on their way to the deserved rings.
I always have a design in mind beforehand and primitively sketch it out. More often than not, as I am actually creating the piece, i tighten up the design. This piece originally had several clock faces from photos i took of the great clock at the Musée d’Orsay. I was going have a row dark blue versions of the girl seen in upper left corner as if the line were falling off top each clock to join all other shades. I was so pleased with the effect of depth and movement in the background of the vast crowd, i decided against it, feeling that it would detract.
I had been working on a large project and so knew doing a full scale Cinefield® was not possible. I get equal enjoyment from my ongoing “In the Eights” series. Their benefit being that they do not take up as much studio space and so I can do them at same time as something else.
For this series within the series, I had the pleasure of Kini Rao posing for me. She fully embraced my ethos of truth is beauty and her pieces are all the more stronger for it. No digital magic is used, just my trusty scissors and adhesive applied by brush. Each one is roughly 3×5
I am always considering new models for the series. If interested send me an email.
Over the course of the past year have adopted the rhythm of doing a Cinefield® then a painting (while maintaining steady flow of nightly drawings & 8’s). At the start of a painting it rained for days off and on. I put it aside, the novelty of doing so being in itself of value for my creative process.
I started a new Cinefield® , the creation of which I do not need sunlight for.
Even though the shapes are lush and abstract, I wanted to see if I could achieve an open ended, open to interpretation sense of narrative.
“Bing-Bong” The piece is 11×14. As always all the images are from photos I personally took. There is no digital magic just my trusty scissors and adhesive applied by brush.
What feels like another lifetime ago, I made a CD. I felt very self conscious and looking back, judge my performances to be widely uneven. The parts that I can still bare to listen to, at the time I thought of nothing but what I was doing (talk/singing). The parts which are not as great, i was self conscious of the faces I couldn’t help but make while performing. A sort of seizure- scrunched up- ecstasy morphing into drawn- down horsey longness.
Way after the fact I felt what I had already intellectually known, no one listening to CD would think “Wow, I bet he had on weird faces while doing this.” And, that aside I now know it is highly subjective anyways. If one is a fan of a band, then in concert when singer looks like he perhaps could use an un-sharpened pencil put in their mouth, you think “Wow, he is really getting into it, this is intense.” Someone not into the band seeing same performance may snicker.
My In the Eights series is capturing looks we give but would largely prefer others not see. They are slurred to surrealistic proportions as I wanted to make it beautiful and off putting. It is not so much that for each of us our “eights” are there just below the surface, they come out, making appearances when we laugh, cry, are drunk, climax or for some of us, feel anger. It’s the terrible beauty.
The genesis of this series. My regular collages are very time consuming and slowly take over my studio with sheets of paper upon which rest tiny paper snowflakes. I alternate between doing a painting and collage. I worked hard to gain my collage chops and found as i worked on painting I missed it. I absolutely could not do both at once. When I am on the road, I am still creating but with the way my collage work is, that is all I would be doing. I came up with the idea to do drastically smaller ones which I would be able to do on the road and also while working on painting. Since I had the road in mind i knew I would not be able to use 100% my own images as I usually do. I also realized I may not be able to achieve my preferred density. The answer was to do portraits. My first few 8’s were found pictures. Reluctantly, I showed them. People really liked them an encouraged me to do more. I was able to get people to model for me which had been my one initial qualm about showing them initially.
They are small, all being roughly index card sized. I work no digital magic, utilizing old school technique of scissors and adhesive applied with a brush. As it is an ongoing series, I am always looking for new models, email me for details.
I do not view one of my mediums as of greater importance than any other. Regardless of what I have done during the day, painting, collage et al at night I sketch. In rough estimation, I probably carry out my night time sketching 360 days a year with arriving in and returning from Europe being the only established days I don’t.
This nighttime sketching is in the parlance of musicians, termed “wood shedding”. It is the equivalent of when a musician practices scales. I am always surprised to hear some of my peers do not do this as even Coltrane continued to constantly practice.
With every collage I do, I learn something new and refine my process. Often I find that when I discover an easier way to do something, there is the feeling that it was so obvious, how had I not thought of it before?
A few nights ago the idea hit me, to wood shed with my collage too. I mulled over initial “rules” knowing that they would most likely be expanded upon as I go.
It’s very important to me that I use my own images from photos which I personally took in my collages. There is always a component of jazz like improvisation in my collages and I worried that using them to wood shed would take away some of that spontaneity and power.
As I had no intentions of showing the results of wood sheds to anyone, i would not be concerned with using images I did not photograph. The other factor of this is that with all the images I use, I do not want to have them appearing over and over again in my work (at least not without a long break in-between). Using other images will keep mine fresh for me. The other rule which immediately came to me is that they should all be small. Usually my collages are time consuming and it would not make sense to have practice work take days on end. Also working small was nice challenge. I do not have uniform size but none of these go much bigger than 3×5.
The few people who I showed these to were very enthusiastic. I must admit that I liked them too. After the first two I established an aesthetic which is beautiful but also slightly off putting. Despite the pleasure i get from even just practicing, I do not see myself putting these up to view too often, so enjoy the initial foray into establishing a new arrow in my quiver.
For my last collage the emphasis was just on doing something lush & beautiful. With this one I wanted to return to my often achieved effect of an open ended narrative. I also have in mind the desire to collage when on the road. With my density achieved via so many small components the amount of time it takes to do the piece would mean that on a shorter trip I would only (if even) be able to do a collage and not also paintings, sculptures et al.
Right now I have two styles of collage. I have mainly been doing my denser mosaic style. The other style incorporates larger pieces and I achieve the density I prefer in my works via distortions of lines and parts. This style is perfect for on the road, while the challenge of getting my preferred density will keep me away from mere mannerisms.
As is always the case with my collages, there is no digital magic. I use my trusty scissors and adhesive applied with brush to photos which I personally took.
Paper Life Painting 