Passion.......in a glass.

FACON DE VENISE

Dragon wine glass, Venetian mid 1600s

    I am all but lusting over this incredible 17th Century example of a Facon de Venise dragon wine glass (or goblet). As I prepare to begin a series of extremely ambitious still life paintings inspired by the 17th Century, I find myself obsessing over the objects, particularly this wine glass. I'm sure this obsession is fueled largely by my previous experience as a home furnishings and accessories designer where I devoted a lot of time designing glassware and working in the glass factories on the island of Murano in Venice. I am putting that experience back to work as I will be designing 2 Facon de Venise dragon glasses to be used in a few of the paintings. I will be working with a master glass artist at the Corning Museum of Glass in New York to create these pieces. As the project moves further along, I'll post more pictures and updates.

Black Glass

"SPIRITS OF THE SEA"

oil on canvas

(click image for detail)

As I mentioned in the previous post I have several projects in the works in the studio at the moment. One that is in the development stage is my upcoming exhibition in Beaufort, NC next year in conjunction with the 2014 Beaufort Food and Wine Festival. I am starting to put compositions together for those paintings, a few of which will feature these old black glass bottles from the late 1600s and early 1700s (very appropriate for Beaufort). Currently I find myself thinking about these bottles a lot so I thought I'd repost this entry from a couple of years ago......

     To me these old black glass bottles are the embodiment of the spirit of the sea. They are hard to come by and perhaps even harder to paint but they exude a spirit of life at sea, taverns in the old port town and of course the period of the "Golden Age of Piracy" like no other object I paint. First of all they are beautiful objects that display amazing qualities of handblown glass such as extremely raised pontils in their bases, air bubbles (or seeds as they are known) embedded within the glass and hand applied "string" lips. These bottles being utilitarian were produced in standard albeit irregular shapes each one slightly different from the other with no great emphasis on their being perfect. Although they are called black glass they are actually a very dark and smokey olive green which you can see when you hold one up to the light. I have a couple that are so old and aged that they really are black with some iridescence on the surface. You can see one of those "pancake onion" wine bottles in my painting "The Colonial" in the post previous to this one. The actual bottle used in that painting is from a backwater creek near the Historic Jamestown Settlement in Virginia. I purchased it as I have several other black glass bottles from a guy who is a blackwater diver. Below is a photo of him holding the bottle (the one in the middle) used in the painting as well as another one I purchased from him. Notice the marine growth which he carefully had to clean off. These bottles are English and date back to the late 1600s or very early 1700s.

     The black color of the bottles is due to the iron content that was put into the composition of the glass to strengthen it in order to minimize breakage in transit as well as to darken the glass to prevent light from spoiling the wine inside. The various shapes represent the evolution of the design of the wine bottle starting with the onion, my favorite, and is represented by the left and middle bottles in the above photo. The onion proved to be too inefficient for storage and shipping so the bottle shaped evolved to become the "Mallet" as seen in the far right bottle above and eventually an even more economical design emerge called the "Cylinder" which is the tallest and slenderest shape and is the forerunner of today's wine bottle.

"THE COLONIAL"

oil on linen, 16"x 12"

The "Pancake Onion" bottle in this painting is the one in the middle from the photo above. (Click image for detail)

     Below is a fresh haul of bottles amongst the dive gear which is unique to blackwater diving....visibility zero.

     Below are some more shots of the divers with recovered treasure. What I love about the bottles I've acquired from this diver is knowing that unlike other bottles I've purchased from antique shops and the like that have passed through several "owners" prior to my owning them, these bottles were tossed overboard a sloop or some other 17th or 18th century vessel , perhaps even by pirates only to next be touched by the diver and then by me. That's about as close to the source as you can get and being a still life painter, I can sense a certain potency that is inherent in certain objects and let me tell you these bottles are ALIVE!

I love them too!

The space in between......

"ESCAPE ROUTE"

oil on canvas, 36"x 26"

(click image for detail)

     This painting from my exhibition "Forever" in 2000 always generates a strong response when viewed. Perhaps I wasn't aware of its potency so much when I painted it. My original intent was focused on the moment a world opens up to you (as I have joked I wanted to create a feeling such as Dorothy had when she opened the door of her house after landing in Oz) or perhaps a more specific and poignant intention was to symbolically introduce a beautiful escape from one's bleak and dismal situation they may currently find themselves in, in this case the painting was about escaping to the sea. I have been thinking about this work recently and its relevance to my current direction. The past few weeks I found myself drifting a bit and in need of tighter focus. The two main subjects in this painting as I perceived them when I painted it were the interior of the house and the exterior space which is the beach scene (the escape). Then yesterday in a huge moment of zenful awareness I recognized the third and most important subject of this painting......the opening of the doorway! It was the space in between the inside and outside, the defined portal with boundaries which if stayed within would lead to this marvelous and wondrous space beyond. All of a sudden I began to notice the funnel created by the open door shape and the cast light and shadow created by the opening and its meaning. The most powerful part of this painting finally revealed itself to me 13 years later! I suppose I had always been focused on the "ESCAPE" part of the painting. Now as I regain my way forward it is the opening or the "ROUTE" that I see.......

A Silver Dollar......

"SILVER DOLLAR"

24k gold and pure silver on prepared paper

(click image for detail)

One of my finest metalpoints to date. I look forward to pushing this technique further while maintaining the splendid ethereal quality of its delicacy.

The Name Game......

"THE GOLDEN MARSH"

oil on canvas, 11"x 20"

(click image for detail)

     This is a second (and much briefer post) about the emphasis I place on titling my work. This painting was originally to be titled "Marsh Fire" which I was crazy about but then I started thinking about the perceptions of the two words together....marsh-fire and how it could be perceived literally like the marsh had physically burned, so I changed it to "The Golden Marsh". My original intent was a "burning" one of sorts as it relates to the golden hour of the sun "burning" the marsh with a fiery wash of color. But perhaps the analogy was too close to the literal possibility that one might perceive the marsh had been physically burned. So in this case I went with a safe title after the work had been completed. The painting sold nonetheless so all ended well. But I always try to take advantage of the literary component in the creation of a painting, the title. Titles are incredible devices at the artists' disposal and for the life of me I can't figure out why so many artists consider them afterthoughts. I have actually on several occasions STARTED with a title and produced the painting to live up to it. To me, starting with a great title is like giving the painting life and personality before you even put down the first brush mark.....of course the painting will let you know if it wants to be known by something different, hence "THE GOLDEN MARSH".

And the secret is.......

     This is the post where people will say he's "lost it" or he's "found it". Being that this is art I suppose either would not be such a bad thing. On several occasions I've had artists and non-artists alike ask me "what's your secret?" This is most often asked at my exhibition opening receptions where there are (thankfully) lots of red dots beneath the paintings. And also I admit, seeing all the work framed and hanging together is quite a sight. But I assume this question "what is your secret" is asked regarding  my sales despite the poor economy etc. of the last several years. Whenever I'm asked "what is your secret" I generally respond that there is no secret. It's just not a subject I care to engage in with people......but in fact there is a secret. There's a secret to it ALL!   I admit it. And over the last 15 years or so I've been documenting it and it's all in the black binder pictured above. The most secret component is the little capsule of enlightenment that exists within me and it "colors" everything I see, experience and perceive (it's written on a note kept in the envelope which stays in the binder). If I were  in any other profession I would never ever ever admit to such a thing! But when your work teeters on the brink between fantasy and reality, as is the case in most art, then opening up to all available resources (including belief in such notions) really does become quite meaningful and can produce spectacular results.  It is unteachable and can't be shared or explained. It comes to an artist like an angel in the night. I don't think one is aware at the time it arrives, but once it enters you can feel it's presence and it remains forever.

     And so the secret is........"there is a secret!"

          

The tragically beautiful sea.......

"AFTER THE STORM"

oil on canvas, 22"x 34"

(click image for detail)

     I have often mentioned that one of the things that compels me to paint the sea is the fact that no other subject so powerfully renders its state of being. For those that are "open" to it, there is so much that the sea offers and there is so much that it takes away.......

     I won't go into detail, but in the serene painting above there is a terribly tragic story at its core. Most people who saw this painting in an exhibition I had a few years ago commented on how peaceful, or how beautiful it was not knowing the terrible event that created the scene in the first place. I knew the story though, and knowing that tragic story gave me a heightened sensitivity to the nature of the sea.  I don't think I could have done this painting so sensitively had I not known of the horror behind it. It would've been just a pretty picture of an old boat washed up on a beach.......and that would have been meaningless.

A statement from an unabashed realist painter of the sea........

"OFFSHORE"

oil on canvas, 18"x 24"

     I graduated from college in 1983 with a degree in painting and immediately set out for Europe where I spent several months in Spain and then a year in Florence Italy absorbing some of the most spectacular art and culture imaginable and over the next 9 years I continued traveling annually to Spain and Italy taking it all in more and more. Very deep impressions were made upon my young artistic sensibilities and I realized beyond any shadow of a doubt what "great art" was. In those early years of my career it became crystal clear to me that all of the so called "Modern" art was a bunch of hokum. I decided then that the bar that I would strive to reach was that set by the masters of the Renaissance and Baroque periods. Knowing that bar would be way too high to ever reach I nonetheless set my sights on it because I knew in my soul that the craft of painting employed by these great masters WAS the one and only true device of real artistic achievement, regardless of how eloquently some argue on behalf of modern art. Over the years as I continued to develop creatively and technically, I began to refine my direction and cast off (almost one by one) subjects I was painting because I felt that's what artists "should" be painting. I then started to really open up the channels of artistic "honesty" to begin painting  the subject that was truly in me to paint. It was the subject that has always been at the core of my creative wellspring..........the sea.

     But this was not only water, boats, beaches and seashells (the usual subject matter). This was THE SEA! It's that romantic notion that compels us all to desire to be near it, or by it or on it. This is a deeply felt emotion that I desperately wanted to express. It was an amazingly secure feeling knowing that I could bring to it my uniquely formed trajectory rooted in the art of the Renaissance and 17th Century Europe and realizing that I could proceed with the rest of my career with the absolute comfort of knowing that I would never ever have to struggle with direction, inspiration, technique or means of expression again. 

"SHIP IN A BOTTLE"

oil on linen, 23"x 20"

     It humors me to see what is being labeled as great art by today's "masters" (forget all the conceptual stuff being made in the large cities, I don't  pay attention to that junk anymore). It puzzles me though, why so many incredibly gifted painters working today simply follow the flock? If figure-painting is hot, the masses of these artists paint figures. If it's plein air, then there'll be hoards of plein air painters out there just merrily paintin' away and you can hardly tell one artists' work from the other!  I'm not claiming to be the one and only painter who split off and decided to march to the beat of his own drum, but there is so much available to the painter who has the skill level that many realists working today have, and why so many just fall into a slot along with the next members of the flock is a mystery to me. 

"THE SOUND OF THE SEA"

oil on linen, 27"x 20"

     And really though, why do I care? My general concern is and should be what I do and to make sure that I do it as honestly and to the best of my ability that I can regardless of what the "trend" is. For this artist, the sea is the ultimate. It is a subject that will always be mysterious, romantic, familiar and powerful beyond all. Perhaps as a 24 year old living and breathing art in Florence back in the 1980's, it was established deep into my being that from then on it would take A LOT to impress me. I can think of no other subject on this earth that impresses me more than the deep blue sea.

       To borrow an Italian art term (chiaroscuro meaning light and dark), just as in the "chiaroscuro" of life, the sea has a light side.....

"FANTASY FOR WIND AND SEA"

oil on canvas, 34"x 50"

.....and a dark side.

"UNDER THE BLACK FLAG"

oil on linen, 30"x 48"

A peaceful side......

"THE GARDEN BY THE SEA"

oil on canvas, 18"x 16"

......and a perilous side.

"SEA STORM"

oil on canvas, 12"x 16"

     .......and I'm not ashamed to say that I'm going to spend the rest of my life exploring the depths of the sea in all meanings of the term, and the emotions that it arouses and to do it with even greater and greater veracity, both in terms of feeling and representation. May I forever be hopelessly "lost at sea".....

Reflecting on a painting past......

"AS THE SPIRIT MOVES"

oil on canvas, 22"x 33"

     Sometimes paintings are like old friends, you start to think about them and would like to see them again. This commissioned work from a few years ago is one such piece. Today it wafted into my mind and I pulled it out to take a look at it and thought I'd share it here. It is packed with meaning for its owner which is not evident to the uninformed......very, very appropriately so. 

The Twilight Zone.....

"NAUTICAL TWILIGHT"(study)

oil on linen, 12"x 16"

     THERE IS A PAINTING IN THERE! You just have to look really hard to see it and that is the very essence of the subject itself. This is a study for a larger version that was sold at my show last summer to a very distinguished gentleman who has built an illustrious career upon the sea. To say the least he was very knowledgeable about "Nautical Twilight". I was not aware of it until I was researching lunar tables for a nocturnal sea painting I was planning to do en plein air and came across this odd but fascinating term and read about it. In a nutshell it is the time of evening (or morning as well) when the last remnants of the horizon at sea are visible. Here's what I observed when I went over to the beach one evening to execute some studies of nautical twilight and take notes: At the very moment, right before the horizon of the sea disappears into the darkness of night, the sea actually appears to lighten (it is reflecting the last glimmer of light in the evening sky!) at which point the values of the sky and sea equalize and the horizon of the sea disappears altogether and then the sea and the sky rapidly descend into total darkness together. THIS WAS FASCINATING TO DISCOVER!!! I had always assumed that like the evening descent into nighttime on the mainland where the land goes darker and darker until it is pitch black then the sky goes black, the sea "waits" for the sky to darken then they go to pitch black together. The sea is a different world both above and below. It is an atmospheric phenomenon as fascinating as "The Green Flash" which the purchaser mentioned above has also observed.

     Below is the same painting as above in its frame. It is actually a very beautiful painting that I have hanging in my studio. It does indeed seem as if you are looking into the night when viewing it, even during the daytime. 

"NAUTICAL TWILIGHT" (framed study)

Here's a link to Nautical Twilight