That feeling of wanting to flee brought about the idea of this painting. I wanted it to come across mostly as an abstract with a vibrancy and rawness. If the image were music, it would be free jazz.

Sketching the piece worked out pretty quick and all the while, thinking I’d make this one huge, at least sixty inches high.

oil pastels

The figures are wispy little things running to something much better.

lemon yellow and yellow ochre

oil and wax

Their hope and inspiration are flying high shown by the white sheets blowing in the wind.

table wax

Texture is built up and cracking everywhere.

I’ve been thinking of ships lately. Images will pop up and I’ll put them into some of my paintings. This piece was originally titled “leaving the factory” to go along with the theme of abandoned factories and old rooms.

60" x 40" oil, wax and thread

"wall I"

"wall II"

"wall III"

Tonight, after going over some work, I realized where the “unknown” theme began, here with these paintings done in 1998 and 99. Light and space are the only elements in the paintings, emanating the feeling of  “past” which asks, ‘what has been here before?’

"another way"

As I proceed, in 2008, the walls series takes on much more detail in “another way”.

bathroom windows at 1 Cottage St.

When I was working in an old mill building in Easthampton, Mass., there were these windows with vines growing over the glass panels and when the sun shone through, a luminous green would fill the space. It always reminds me of buildings in decay, places lost in time while being grown over by earth. I made a few sketches of this purely fictional scene, but the over all piece took lengths of time for the coloring to fall into place.

50" x 44"

wave XIII

Every so often I paint waves. It’s kind of a release from the other paintings. They’re done in the same way and still fall into the category of semi-abstract. They are painted to sell, and are smaller, around 16″ x 20″. The first group of them made it into a tiny deli in downtown Portsmouth and then later made their home in a massage pallor, coincidentally, called Waves . It wasn’t until showcasing on eBay that they sold and had a small following. Keeping up the task of painting waves was not exactly easy. It quickly turned into a job and I felt like getting back to the really creative, imaginative stuff.

This painting always reminds me of the last day of school or the last day of work, when the unknown beckons and a hopeful new world is becoming a reality. I wanted to get across the overwhelming rush of afternoon light as it floods the space and sends your eye far into the distance, where you can only see white.

I remember painting this in 2006 and I was having a blissful year, not really because of anything astounding, but because I felt peaceful and had no want for anything. The irony is that when I realized this kind of nirvana was taking place, I immediately wanted it to last forever.

filter/stylize/glowing edges

After manipulating the image with ‘glowing edges’, I kind of liked the result and tried it with a few others, but the effect didn’t come out as well as this one. It reminds me of folk art on acid. What would be great is if something like this could be done with neon lights or fiber optics, as an installation.

This one was not accepted to an art association in the state I live in and I’ve been feeling vulnerable these days because of it. “Rejection helps”’ someone told me a while ago.

The little being is bathing in an algae filled aquarium under the water in what could be another aquarium. I wanted to add certain details that had a lot of meaning to me. It was a very personal piece I offered.

42" x 32" oil, wax, thread

When finishing up, I added a smile to its face. What was important to me, was to have this creature happy in its underwater world. I broke off a lot of wax on the wall of the image to let bright light come through. Being unemployed at the time, I probably wanted to believe that somewhere there was a light at the end of the tunnel.

Here is another painting like the one below. The hues are in the same range, but this time, other objects are painted in to tell a story. These pieces of work are not really abstract and far from being pure abstract, yet the surface of them is broken up enough to make them semi.

“In the Tailor Shop” series started with this sketch in 2003. I experimented with this piece quite a bit and it took me about six months to finish. The way I paint these are a little different than the other series. The dresses are gone over more with shading and highlighting to get a somewhat realistic view and the melted wax is brushed over a completed oil painting.

"dress" 44" x 50"

I wanted the dress to pop, appearing more lifelike. The intent came from the feeling of being objectified. The dummy is used and displayed. I tried to stay within the theme and coloring, yet that veered into different colored dresses and all kinds of situations.

What has stayed the same with each of the ‘Tailor’ images is that part of the dress remains sketched, unfinished and painted with loose brushstrokes. This particular one, I brought out the strong black lines just as the sketch, keeping it a bold contrast against the orange.