Something seemed to pull me into the studio tonight, like a powerful current near a sinkhole or enormous drain.
This was painted using Schmincke soft pastels, and Henri Roche (the “Feu d’artifice” were used in the sky). This combination of pastels and paper is lovely to work with, and the specific coarseness of the page gives a peculiar smoothness to the sensation of each stroke.
Inspired by the unknowns of the future we’re creating right now. Will there come a terrible dark night, silent, on some lost shore, unseen, forgotten?
This piece is painted primarily with Henri Roche pastels. (Applying white over black and maintaining the density and clarity of each requires very pure rich hues.)
This piece is not for sale.
Inspired by the daily meditation practice that helps me “fight off the darkness”. This is a piece about peace, and finding a path.
I used a combination of Sennelier and Blue Earth pastels, as well as a bit of glow powder and gold dust to bring a soft luminous highlight to the silhouetted figure.
“Seeing Red” soft pastel on Pastelmat, 7″ x 9.5″, 2026
Emotions are tricky. Some of them pull us in, until we lose ourself in some small detail.
This piece is painted using a combination of Henri Roche, Blue Earth, and Sennelier soft pastels, and is available for sale.
I’m working on a commission, presently. A long-time friend who appreciates my work recently commissioned me to do a self-portrait. An interesting commission, and I undertook it enthusiastically, without giving the matter any hesitation at all – now I’m mired in it. lol Self-reflection is deep on a thing like this, but it’s not as if it is the first time I’ve done a self-portrait. They’ve changed over the years.
In the 80’s and early 90’s, when I was still “finding my artistic voice” (still a work in progress, as it turns out), and painting in both watercolor and acrylic, I found emotional safety in abstraction for self-portraiture.
I didn’t “stay in that place” indefinitely, things sometimes felt better, sometimes they felt worse. It was a complicated journey, artistically, and I often found that painting was a way of saying what I did not have words for at that time in my life.
Some of it I still lack words for, and I’m happy to be in a very different place in life now. My feelings about these works, and the experiences they represent, remain very complicated.
When my first marriage ended, in 1995, I fought hard and went through much to keep a small painting that remains one of my very fondest pieces, and it hangs in my home even now. I’ve never managed to take a decent photograph of it, and I guess I’m okay with that.
By 2000 I was painting exclusively in acrylic, and doing a lot of 3D mixed-media work, abstractions and pieces that used a lot of glow, glitter, ceramic adornments, and often working quite large. There were certainly pieces I could call self-portraits in the years between 1995 and 2014, when this next piece was painted, but they weren’t necessarily intended that way. (I think art as a form of self-expression of necessity says something about the artist, one way or another.)
The last self-portrait I started on is still “work in progress”, and I don’t know that I’ll ever finish it. I’ve moved on from that moment. I don’t feel the way I did then, and I’m not sure I can finish it in an honest way because I have changed.
So, here I am, now. This person, this woman, this artist, reflecting on self, and preparing to do one sort of self-portrait I’ve never done before; a work on commission for someone else. It’s an interesting project, and it is prompting me to reflect on details of the answer to a question in life that is simultaneously quite deep, and also quite mundane. Possibly one of the least useful questions one can ask oneself; because we already know the answer, however reluctantly we choose to acknowledge it. Self-reflection has value – but does it have hue? I chuckle to myself as I consider how best to portray the woman I see in the mirror every day.
Many years ago, during a difficult period in my life, and living (and painting) on very limited means, I found myself deeply inspired (and also very broke). It’s been rare to experience inspiration that overcame my senses to the point of painting “in a frenzy”, but there I was. It was an intensely creative few days of steady (mostly sleepless) work. I used up most of the paper and pigment on hand for three series of thirteen smallish pieces, varying a bit in size (I was in some cases working from scraps, but most of this first Frenzy series are roughly 5″ x 7″). I drank too much coffee, and washed my hands too seldom. It was, as I recall, 1997, in Fresno’s notorious Tower District.
I initially began with a notable focus on UV pigments, and interference colors, and any other similarly visually intense pigments I had on hand at the time. The series of work used a specific technical approach to creating the pieces throughout that resulted in a somewhat “Rorschach test” inspired set of images, which nudge the viewer to bring their own thoughts and impressions to each piece. I welcome your comments.
These pieces are available for sale (each original, no copies or prints are available). Please contact me by email if interested.
I am thinking about art, feeling inspired, but too sick to paint today. It’ll pass, it’s not a big deal, just a cold or virus, or whatever. The local “ick”. So I look over old work that has not previously made it into this blog that I might share, and look for some theme.
Trying times, culturally and politically, in the USA. Hard times often produce some great art – which is not any sort of endorsement of hardship or chaos, it’s just a thing that occurs. It often seems the world is burning (wildfires, warfare, social upheaval)… I guess I’ll need more hues of red, orange, yellow… maybe some organic hues, and hues of violet and magenta? I look at older works that reflect other hard times…
Returning from deployment (Desert Storm) took me awhile to “sort out”. It was strange and difficult to come home to civilian life.
Emotional pain, physical pain, cultural pain, violence, warfare, and hardship; it’s not the same sort of inspiration as I feel when I am inspired by love, or a beautiful sunrise. Painting just happens to be the way I communicate what I don’t have words for.
A lot of living, a lot of memories, a lot of inspiration – some of it quite personal, some of it less so, are reflected in a lifetime of painting. I have done most of my painting in times of hardship, sorrow, and pain, because I didn’t have language for those experiences (and few experiences of joy in earlier years).
We grow, we move on, we experience more and different and other, and we live again. I’m grateful that there have been more moments of joy than of hardship, and I’m grateful to be able to paint when I don’t have words. Hard times come and go, the art remains.
This piece is inspired by recent world events, global warfare, and the unsettling sensation that the world is on fire, which has begun to seep into my dreams. It’s not a coincidence that it is similar to “The Nightmare City”; it is a place I see often in my dreams. In my PTSD-fueled nightmares, I find myself on this street, looking up the road toward…what, exactly? The distance? What is beyond, I never quite find out, however long I walk – or run. Sometimes it helps to paint these images, sometimes it doesn’t.
A look back a piece from 2019.
This piece still gives me a feeling of peace and hope. It relies on a lot of glow, and one prominent “googly eye”.
Inspired by a year of stress, this piece is the first abstract work I’ve done in pastel. Small, because honestly stress doesn’t need a boost to feel huge.
