Simple gift

I wrote about Buffalo George Toomer on the occasion of his passing several years ago. I was surprised and honored last week to be gifted with his paintbrush box, complete with his partly smoked cigar and 4B pencil.

Thanks to his son for this honor. I was and I still am pretty much speechless.

Pic for tat

I did this ink and watercolor drawing a couple of years ago. I had been considering designing my own tattoo for awhile, and I decided this image would be a good one. So my friend and tattoo artist Riley Padgett inked his interpretation onto my left arm. So here it is:

Looks pretty good, I think.

Bosch in the round.

This past weekend we attended a holiday party at some friends' house. The lady of the house, artist Rosemary Meza, had a collection of toys and resin figurines, which were three dimensional interpretations of images from famous paintings. I found out where she got these figures and checked out the web site.

Among the most interesting figurines were those taken from Hieronymus Bosch's "The Garden of Earthly Delights" and "The Temptation of Saint Anthony". I also thought it was interesting that the subjects chosen were among the more horrific images in those paintings, the monsters and demons wreaking their own Boschian havoc on sinners and malcontents deemed unworthy of Paradise.

I found one of my favorite images from Bosch's work recast as a figurine and will one day get one of my very own. Of course it ended up being one of the more expensive pieces.

It's the "Tree Man", which always looked like an eggshell to me. In any case it's from the "Hell" side of "The Garden of Earthly Delights".


There was also a series of pieces based on Salvador Dali images. Dali was probably my favorite artist, followed by Bosch and M.C. Escher (who is represented by 3D versions of his "Tessellations" series), from my college days. One of the Dali pieces is from "Geopolitius Child Watching The Birth Of The New Man", which back then hung in poster form on my bedroom wall.
I think it's interesting that while the Dali pieces are from some of his most famous paintings, his signature image, the melting watches from "Persistence of Memory" aren't among them.



Anyway, these objects and others can be found at Museumize.com.

"Finalist" in The Artist's Magazine

I've posted this image before, but the December issue of the Artist's Magazine features the winners of their 28th Annual Art Competition. I wasn't one of those, but I was a "Finalist" in the Animal/Wildlife category.
That means my name was listed, but without an image of the painting I submitted. So here it is, "Icons".

An addendum; I learned this Thanksgiving weekend that "Icons" has been sold. So thanks to the buyer and I hope it fits well into its new home.

The Big Three-O

Today marks my thirtieth year as an independent professional artist. After graduating from college in 1977 I spent a year staggering around Los Angeles in various free-lance positions for a couple of different design firms. I also landed some illustration projects. Then I was hired in a full time job at a Houston studio, where I stayed for three years. When I decided to go back out on my own Dallas was the logical place to start, since I had many friends and family in the area.

On September 1, 1981 I set up my drawing table in my little Oak Lawn apartment and the rest is hysteria. To commemorate the occasion I'm posting the image that adorned my first business card. It has been an interesting experience and we'll see what the next thirty years may bring.

Past blast

About thirty-two years ago I made this piece and gave it to two friends as a gift. I don't remember the occasion, if there was an occasion. Each boot represents one of them as an individual and the pair represents them together. I lost touch with the couple for several years and I was happy to recently hear from one of them. He said the piece still hangs in his house. That's always good to know.

It's in the mail.

A few years ago I was commissioned to create an image for a book published by the Half-Price Books chain of stores. The book was titled "Say Good-Night to Illiteracy" and featured amateur stories and poems with pictures by professional artists. It was sold at the stores with the sales proceeds going to school illiteracy programs.
The story illustrated by this image described how, as the people of Africa watched the Moon, it also watched over them. The painting was accepted into Spectrum, an annual juried show of fantasy oriented art.

A while after Spectrum was published this letter arrived in the mail.

For obvious reasons, including respect for the writer's privacy, I've blurred his name and forwarding address.
The note surprised me, but I was also flattered by it. It took awhile for me to get around to following up on this, but I eventually printed and sent the image to him. I didn't hear from him again, so I don't know whether or not he received it. I hope so.
I also hope things are working out better for him, wherever he is.

Hmmmm...again.

I read today that "Iron Man" and "Iron Man 2" director Jon Favreau is directing a movie set for a summer 2011 release titled, annoyingly enough, "Cowboys and Aliens", apparently based on a graphic novel of the same name. It has nothing to do with me and of course the title is a coincidence, but I do want to get this out to the universe now. I thought of the phrase first.
Not that such wordplay is all that difficult, and seems like an obvious match when you think of it, but still. Since I work in relative obscurity, when more famous entities coincidentally come up with the same phrase, name, style, image, whatever, it appears that I'm stealing from them. I hate when this happens.

Here's the image, nevertheless, this version painted in 2008.

I used the same idea on these "Circus Punk" dolls created for the 2005 "Circus Punks Rule New York" exhibition at The Showroom in, yes, New York.

Things that make you go "hmmm"...

More than once I've been...accused is too strong a word, I guess, but it has been suggested, of taking stylistic liberties with someone else's ideas, borrowing, appropriating, stealing, call it whatever. I've never consciously done such a thing, but since there are no new ideas under the sun coincidences do happen. So I try to be understanding when I see elements I have introduced in my own work turning up in someone else's work. The problem is when the artist coincidently introducing those same elements has a higher profile than I do (which wouldn't take much). Then, when my work including those elements gets whatever recognition it has, it appears I have ripped off that artist, whose work is seen before and more often and publicly than mine.
So it is, with an element I introduced into my paintings about ten years ago.
Here's an example of the element:



It's a simple circle, achieved by loosely applying a circular surface with paint onto the surface of the piece. Here's the first example of my having used it in an abstract painting, in about 1999:




Here's an example of its application in a fairly recent landscape painting from a couple of years ago:



And here's the more recent application, from my current "Rooster Series":



Okay. I'm not accusing anyone of stealing a minor design element from me. The artist in question is one I've been personally acquainted with in the past, although I haven't seen her in several years. Her work is featured in the new issue of a prominent regional art magazine. The loose circular element is used as a design device throughout the article and is seen in one of the featured paintings. I first noticed this similarity in one of her paintings on view at a Santa Fe gallery I was visiting last year. Now it's a major element in a magazine profile of her work. So whatever exposure my paintings utilizing this element may receive in the future will appear to the uninformed to be taking an element she originated. This kind of thing happens, and is more often than not innocent, and I'm going to assume it is in this case. I'm not happy about, but pointing this out is all I can do about it, and I think it's an important thing to do.
So there.