Artist Statement
I hadn’t planned on a lot of things. I hadn’t considered there would someday be an internet or that there would be web sites where persons could display, or even want to display, what might be their recorded glory. I didn’t store away the various writings that my work elicited from very kind and thoughtful people. I hadn’t adequately considered the future of my career, and in many ways I still do not consider it all that much. I just do my work quietly and privately in my studio. I don’t think much about my job beyond that. My paintings tend to reflect that. Cobbling together information for this site would have been impossible had it not been for my late wife, Susan, who squirreled away scraps of newspapers and magazines and other print material from which I could glean a few relevant bits. Many of the writings she never saw, so they were not saved and they are gone from my awareness.
The paintings I have chosen for this site are not presented as a chronology of my work. The selections were chosen from only a fraction of the paintings I have made, as I was not always attentive to photographically archiving them. I expect that fewer than half of my approximately nine hundred paintings, were ever photographed. The dates that I have assigned to them in this site are not always accurate. Many are only estimates but I think most are close. I am not sure that it matters. The sizes, too, might occasionally be a couple of inches off. But they are close. I have separated the images into three general areas: figures, still life, and what I call “steamy windows.” These areas of focus are not related to any chronology as they are all done at times overlapping each other and lapping back. In some instances I work on all of these genre concurrently.
All the paintings I am showing here are done in transparent watercolor. I slightly size the paper I am working on with a particular glue in order to prevent the pigments from invading the paper and staining it. That allows me to scrub out passages I might reconsider.
Consequently, I refer to my medium as “watercolor incorrect.” They are “paintings in watercolor.” They are not “watercolors.”
The subject matter and themes of my paintings do not require explanation. The paintings do seem to evoke conversation. I like that.