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This week I was asked to create a work for a show based on a super hero, if you know me at all you'll know I picked IronMan. I thought about creating a work based on bankers being Heros but after the latest buffoonery with Morgan Stanley, Chase Manhattan and the Facebook stocks I realized that at least Tony Stark is fictional and seems to care a little bit for his fellow man. So I took the painting below and started to create Ironman over it. Here is a phone shot of what it looks like now. I know it's fairly pedestrian at this point but keep in mind that this is the beginning sketches. The idea at this point is to create several cells at once with a technique called dynamism.
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I paint on pieces until I feel then are finished. I know that sounds logical but how do you know when something is finished if you have no idea what the end result will be? When I started creating art I was a Photo Realist, but after 3 years I got board of coping what I was looking at, besides I didn't see the point in poorly imitating a camera.  My Art is a log or journal of where my mind has been for the hours I have been working. One thought leads into the next, that is why my work is busy and seems to be fragmented. This is how I am inspired to keep painting. Here is an example of a painting I have been working on for the last 3 weeks.  The painting seems to be at half stage, although I can never be quite sure. I have some paintings go through 3 or 4 finished states before they are complete. I think it has to do with the fact that my skill has not caught up with where the painting is going. I have had paintings take 4 years to complete, that's working on
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Untitled, Acrylic on panel, 8x10,  2012 My new room, graphite on paper, 8x8,  2012 Stroll on Wall, oil on panel, 20x30  2012 America or me?, oil on panel, 40 x40,  2012 Roots, graphite on Yupo paper,  8x11,  2012 Hedge Fund, oil on panel, 25x30  2012 Cut Throat, graphite on paper, 8x12  2012 White Collar 2, acrylic on panel, 8x8  2012 An innocent man, acrylic on panel, 8x8  2012 So here is some of the work I have completed in the last 5 months. I have made a move toward acrylics. After painting with oils for 20 years I needed to break my pattern to learn more about the images and ways to improve on the final outcome of the work. I am also going back to my instinct of image. I got caught up in trying to sell art and as I say, you either make art to sell or you make it because you have something to say, blessed and cursed are those who's art

Painting 12 for the year

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Here is a new painting I am working on, this is stage 2. Not sure where it is going I also wanted to let you know I am excited to tell you I have my first retrospective At the Fine Arts & Creatives Emporium in Everett Wa. next month.!!!
I finished SkipJack this weekend, I will post the final painting tonight... Art is about the mulit-layering of an idea like an onion peals back a layer to reveal another layer. I paint in mulit images and layers to emulate this process, thus the importance of only hinting at images. I want you to fill in the blanks of what you are looking at. After all wasn't it your teachers and your parents who told you " You only see what you want to see!" I like Rembrandt because he created realism out of small abstractions. If you look closely at his work you will see that his brushstrokes are as abstract as any of the abstract expressionists. I am working in the same manor only my final product is a lyrical mess that leaves the viewer with the responsibility of making sense of what they are looking at.
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I painted for money and I didn't like it. Now I paint for myself and I feel like I am actually making a contribution to the creative conciseness of Seattle. Showing my art in cafes brings the work to the masses of people who live everyday life. When you go to galleries you see art that sells, otherwise the gallery would not be in business. My art is not in galleries because it's hard to sell my work. why would anyone try to sell something that is takes convincing the client the work is good? I truly have had people walk up to my art and say "I want this painting" and on the spot write me a check for a couple thousand dollars. My work is not hard to understand if you don't want to understand it. If you feel like you have to know the right answer to my work then you missed the point. title:Skipjack medium: oil on wood date: currently in progress from 2007 to present. size: 30 x 40 (ruffly)
As a way of reinventing yourself you have to break down those things you thought defined you. I thought painting defined me so much that I let the world start to influence my work in order to fit in, in order to make money, in order to be understood. But the cost is too high for me to give up the one thing that makes me feel like I can make an offering to the world, my own creativity no matter how banal, ugly, and ridiculous it is. Money contorts My thinking when it comes to My Art . That being said I have only been painting sporadic late lately. I think it is because I am breaking down the my process of painting and separating it from wanting to make money from it and what it is I am really trying to capture. I know I have said this before but I thought I needed to up date this blog and this is how I feel. I will post work soon as it comes.
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Yes i have been painting, this is somthing whipped up today after painting the house. It's called Bankers Shame...at this point. I am not sure it is finished. I

Reinventing myself

They say reinventing yourself is a good thing, well I agree. In the last 3 years I have felt I have been rehashing my old ideas and thoughts, focusing on Art history and the elements of Art. I decided this year to start something I felt was based in the future and the here and now. Object Oriented Programming is an art form I have not really explored so I have made it my goal to understand and learn OOP to clear out my mind and start new, as it were. This change in scope is a powerful one that has taken me out of my myself and in to the world of the present and future. I compare it to build virtual sculpture that serves a purpose. I see programming as the art it is. My goal is to dive deep in to programming and let it influence my Art. I can't wait to see what comes out. I will post as the painting come. :-)
As I design more and more websites I think more about squares. Last night I had a dream that I was rebuilding my face in CSS3 and HTML5. I remember seeing my hands, my fingers were typing out a Div tag with the Id "eyes". Once that happened I was able to see the browser version of my face and the outlines of all the boxes I had created to form the portrait of my face which was actually me alive.
The painting below. Salmon Eater spawn a new direction. Currently I am working on 5 paintings all of which have this collage of images that fade in to the next. I am excited to see what they look like when I am finished.