Wednesday, November 11, 2009

"Self Portrait CLXXIII"

This image began by rolling up the white Plexiglas plate in burnt sienna etching ink. This placed me smack in the middle of the color wheel. I pushed, shifted, repainted, and wiped away whole compositions and reestablished them in the monochromatic under-painting of burnt sienna. I then applied yellow, painting everywhere where yellow spoke out for ink. Blue followed. Red followed, and then the secondaries. It got thick with ink. Then, the image was subtracted from with the point of a folded Bounty paper towel, and subtracted from with the bristles of the brush. The light shown back through from the white plate, equating to the white of the paper which would illuminate the color in the ensuing print. This was the first cycle of colors, forms, and tones. A bare approximation of the subject was made.

For the next twelve hours, the colors were cycled in over and over. Forms were found. The light was unified. Expression and a sense of contact were then the driving factors until the brush was set down, when the image said yes.

Thursday, May 7, 2009

"Wood Creek"

My offering comments on a work can rob the viewer of being able to bring his or her personal associations to the work. I place Wood Creek here quietly.

Wood Creek is available at Printworks Gallery, Chicago, Illinois, and at Sharon Campbell Fine Art, Travelers Rest, South Carolina.

Sunday, March 15, 2009


Five Still Lifes

Depicted above are five still lifes which I made as an artist-in-residence for the month of September, 2008, in Greenville, South Carolina, at the Fine Arts Center which is Greenville's public school for the literary, performing, and visual arts.

Each image is a monotype painted in oil-based etching inks upon a white Plexiglas plate. Each image was then transferred onto paper by running the ink-painted plate through a printing press.

The still life images are derived from actual objects which I arranged in front of me on a table top a little below eye-level as I stood at the easel.

I don't usually make still lifes. I embarked upon this as new subject territory as a means to make something new and share the learning process with students. I began by hunting for what to draw. I sought shapes, forms, textures, colors, their complements and contrasts. Inevitably, cultural and linguistic associations became elements within every choice. Like it or not, choosing objects and placing them together was story-telling. The phenomenon of object-association also leads inescapably to an implied autobiography. Objects hardly stay neutral because we human beings imbue objects with meaning; it's what we do with everything. Therefore, I needed to be aware of that and take responsibility for that which would be associated with me. Imagery is speech: what shall I say? As I selected, deselected, juxtaposed and composed, no matter what, I was speaking through objects. The fun of it was not belaboring the choices: give it some thought, yes,but ultimately, just grab stuff, put it together, and paint.

In these five monoprints, I was painting food and drink. Primary-colored food is arranged in a trinity in Lemon and Eggplant. Thankful is a reflection on having a meal. As I set up and began the still life, I painted in burnt sienna ink which is a rich brown. With it, I made several unprinted studies on the plate, and with each successive study, I felt more and more drawn to focus on the meal of bread and soup as a surrogate for, or as an echo of the Body and Blood of Christ in the Eucharist. I began the image, actually, with the shaped, arched, pre-cut plate. I think of that as analogous, perhaps, to how a musical composer may first feel a composition as being in a particular emotional key. The shape of the plate feels reverential. From there, the image began to form.

In Five Loaves and Two Fish, a direct painting of the Loaves and Fishes (Matt 14:15-21) depicts that which prefigured the Holy Eucharist as "true food" and "true drink" (John 6:56) for our bodies and souls.

In the mode of looking at everything as potential still life, I found the tea kettle in the kitchen and painted, Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror. I enjoyed painting it as an optical challenge and even as a respite. I was searching back to the objects I drew when I was the age of the students. Drawing one's self and the surrounding world in a curving, reflective surface helps one learn to see. Talking with the students about how we see promted me to take on this challenge anew. At the same time as I enjoyed talking with the students who are artists just beginning to learn to see, I enjoyed being in dialogue with masters from the past, in the Renaissance tradition of portraying one's self in a convex mirror. Indeed, it was a wonderful month for me, of conversations with the students, their families, the faculty and the staff at the school.

In Conversation, two cups of coffee are joined at the point above the intersection of the vertical and horizontal patterns in the tablecloth so that they merge at the heart of the Cross.

I was aware of the images I was painting. These images were, for the most part, meditations on Christ, upon His presence in the Holy Eucharist, and upon God's presence in the Person of the Holy Spirit in us, all people, His people who He loves. I look forward to further explorations in the painting of still lifes to find out where they will lead.


Thankful, Five Loaves and Two Fish, and Self Portrait in a Convex Mirror are available at Sharon Campbell Fine Art, Travelers Rest, South Carolina.