SPRING
BEING THERE I’m delighted that they do that for you. The use of oil paint is a major part of the impact. Pigments suspended in oil allow for a luminosity that isn’t achieved with acrylics. A layer of oil paint enhances the reflection of colors beneath, by allowing light rays to reflect through…it doesn’t block them out. I lay paint on a blank canvas. I don’t use a preliminary drawing. It’s a free space that I’ll alter at any stage of development in order to achieve balance of color and form. The alterations create additional layers which add to the luminosity not subtract from it. Moving the forms around only enhances the surface effect. Oil paint is a very, very low-tech medium that insists upon a lot of patience and a lot of time. It’s a joy returning to the easel…extremely exciting.
While living a wonderful and serene life in the country, do you ever wish to drop everything and go back to the crazy city? No…never…I find equilibrium and truth living in the natural world. It’s luscious to the eyes and palate and I have no desire for craziness.
Ever want to move far, far away? Do you mean getting away from emotions and the relentless flow of thoughts…the inner chaos? I like being on this planet and in this area…being steeped in what we call “Nature”…realizing that I’m not an entity separate from it. Reason doesn’t exist in Nature and that suits my primal self just fine. Reason has brought our species to a place of rockiness and hardness. Nature isn’t trying to get to anything. It has no objective. It just is. Isn’t that great? You know when you love someone so much you just want to hug him or her and break through…right? That’s the feeling…that’s the way it is.
How does your environment affect your persistence in painting? That’s very astute of you to notice that I paint persistently…doesn’t everybody? The impulse to paint…that has been with me for a long time. It’s still a mystery to me. My present environment allows for that impulse to flow.…along with my diet, resistance training, bike riding, hiking, dancing, and love making.
How does one get around the survival / struggle with making money? That’s not an easy question to answer…I guess…being conscious…staying on one’s toes…being agile and able to move quickly. There’s been a lot of propagandizing and conditioning coming out of Mad Ave, instructing us how to lead our lives…for most of us, since birth. It’s a smoke and mirror game…establishing social mores that reek of consumerism. It’s a devious game that the corporations play with TV being its primary vehicle. One struggles less the less one consumes. What do you think it takes to be a full time artist? If I were to advise a seventeen year old, whom I assume is still unhindered, with a strong impulse for self-expression, I’d suggest that they should use self discipline to be disciplined…I can hear the magazine closing all over the Berkshires. I’d suggest: Don’t go to college, the debt will prevent you from maintaining low studio/home overhead. This is essential. Work part time or freelance at a skill you enjoy. Learn to be frugal. Don’t have TV access in your studio. Read everything that you can get your hands on about being involved in your chosen medium but believe none of it. Seek out older artists, ask questions and keep your eyes open. Be self-subsidizing. Don’t look for patrons. It’s essential that you be master of your desires. Don’t have children unless your well is filled to the brim with gold
coins…otherwise your dreams of achieving art could be curtailed for a very long time. You bring your life to your work so design it for maximum clarity…since you are what you eat, don’t ingest alcohol, nicotine, caffeine or sugar. Give yourself time to develop before exposing yourself to the undercurrents of the marketplace. Art doesn’t require competition. Embrace the change that always occurs in you. Do what you want to, but be sure of it. If you think that following your bliss will be exceedingly difficult…you’re correct. Lets talk about your barns. Why express your art with barns? Well why not? For the most part, they are colors and forms that I’m attempting to bring together as an aesthetic image. I’m moved by the abstract quality of barn structures, as they stand in the fields as well as on canvas. I’ve always regarded the act of painting as a spiritual practice and these pieces appeal to that idea. Is there an actual history you share with the Barn? With the disappearing of them, the immenseness of their size, and purpose are you keeping them alive by using them as objects of art to paint? When I lived in New Paltz, I had a studio/home in an old farmhouse. On the farm was a barn with a gambrel roof that housed white-faced cows, horses, some pigs, their hay, and farm equipment. It was a proud structure with flying-buttress beams that were truly magnificent. That barn comes into play in several paintings that I did at that time. Sadly, I've heard that it's been deconstructed…so in a way I’ve kept it alive. My wife, Trudette, spent her formative years on a dairy farm in Ghent. Barns were an essential part of her daily life. I look to her feedback about the paintings as being well rooted. Barns WWW.ARTFULMIND.NET
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THE ARTFUL MIND JUNE 2010 • 23