Abstract Inclinations..

...is the name of my website. I encourage you to visit it, for self-serving reasons, of course, but also because I'd like any comments--good, bad, indifferent--as to the work itself. I am less concerned about the graphics work, because I do not believe that is my strength.

But regarding the paintings: please look, if you have a chance; please buy; please comment.

Thank you.

Why try..

to paint a sunset when it has been painted thousands of times before? Probably because it is the sunset and it's inspiring or compelling, in millions of different ways.

The way I'd paint it: paint the background purple, then plash a lot of deep orange all over the canvas.

How would you paint it?

Art of the Deal

This has nothing to do with The Donald's book years ago where he explains how he extricated himself from monstrous debt and partial backrupcy. God love him; he's The Donald, after all.

I'm thinking about the mythical deal that went down in Missippi at the crossroads, where Robert Johnson gave his soul to the Devil to learn to play the guitar. An average blues guitarist at best, one day Johnson leaves town and a year (or two) comes back and plays with a genius that belies his time away.

I picture Robert walking across a dusty and vacant crossroads. A slight summer Mississipi breeze stirs and Johnson feels a momentary coolness as the breeze skims the sweat on the back of his neck.

There's a tree nearby and a guitar sits under it, and yet no one is around. As Johnson approaches the sky darkens and rain is coming on soon. He proceeds nonetheless. And just as he reaches the tree a picks up the battered guitar, lightening strikes him, nearly kills him.

And like the Doctor in Musicophilia who was struck by lightening and went on to become a virtuoso pianist, Johnson went on the establish, to create, essentially, the Blues.

I'm not only imagining the lightening strike, but the look on Johnson's face just as the bolt hit--it's contortions, it's agony.

How would I paint that? How do you see it?

Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny....

...or does it? Or who the hell knows what that means? Cooked up by some reclusive, likely German philosopher trying to make a name for himself (no female would be frivolous enough to even conceive of such a thing.

I believe it means this: that the individual life lived duplicates/recapitulates the whole of life on the planet, or something like that.

Ask youself this question? Is it something worth talking about?

Nah.

Now I would like to talk about painting a tree: depending on the perspective you're after, do you start from the bottom or top?

Send along your ideas while you are recapitulating.

For six weeks now nothing..

...has happened. No rain and yet very little sun. The few individuals walking the streets are all wearing hats, an odd thing. There's a new trend here that is clear at work. It feels sinister; it feels odd.

At night an odd sound rushes through my house--the sound of wind whipping around a corner. I've grown used to it and have learned to sleep quite well. It' white noise, that's it.

This morning my computer was broke and I had to paint something, because what else is there to do except watch the bland landscape, and all those hats. Jesus, when did that get to be a trend. I feel both alienated and comfortable--but these images, these hatted men and women, I can't get out of my head.

I pick up my brush and what do I paint....?