"Apple Snack," 12" x 9.5," Oil on Panel
While some compositions take a long time, this one with apples just took a few minutes. A student teacher led me to the art school basement that had all sorts of objects gathered over many decades for still life purposes. He found this rusty container, I contributed a couple of apples, and the painting was completed in a couple of days.
"Afternoon Tea," 11" x 14," Oil on Panel
On September 10, 2001, I received an offer for a job at a skilled nursing facility in Marin; I accepted. We moved to a small apartment in San Rafael while looking to buy a house. Most of our things were packed up in stacks of boxes and our apartment looked like a warehouse. I made sure I knew where my paints and brushes were located, but what to paint? My uncle visited and brought a suitcase full of lemons from his own trees. I won a chrome teapot in a raffle at my new job. I bought a tea strainer at a local grocery store and put it all together on our marble lamp stand. The rest was just putting the right colors in the right place.
"Apples and Tea," 16" x 20," Oil on Panel
During my first summer session at the Schuler School of Fine Art in Baltimore, MD, Mrs. Schuler herself - then in her early 80's - taught me how to grind powder pigments in order to make fresh paint each morning. She used a special formula for the oil - a mixture of raw linseed oil and lead carbonate in powder form - all of which she boiled for several hours on her kitchen stove. No other oil painting medium seems to help in blending and articulating fine details. It goes a long way in making a painting look like a museum piece as if it were done in 17th Century Holland.
"Color of Wine," 24" x 18," Oil on Panel
I put a lot of work into this painting especially in composing - an activity not the most dear to my heart. In this type of painting more than in any other, one has the responsibility for everything in the frame.
One can spend hours arranging and rearranging different elements of the composition. In the end it may look more contrived than natural.
"A Taste of Wine," 14" x 11," Oil on Panel
During the golden age of Dutch Still Life Painting, artists attempted all sorts of tricks to make a still life more interesting, and to give it a little more drama. Butterflies, ants, or wasps were worked into the composition. I never thought much of this painting, but when I showed it to an art dealer who managed to sell most of my still life paintings, instead of putting it on consignment, she wrote a check and bought it for herself.
"Picture Window," 18" x 24," Oil on Panel
The vast majority of my harshest critics tell me that this is the most original painting I have completed, and maybe even the best. It is neither a still life, nor a landscape. It defies categories.
During the first few weeks of a new job in home care I saw this scene in the house of one of my clients. I could not get it out of my mind and after several visits, I could not resist the temptation, and asked the client and his wife if I would be allowed to take a picture of the Oxford Ivy that grows outside their window. They agreed and to avoid any possible conflict of interest I stopped by their place one Saturday morning on my day off. Somehow the boss found out and I was called on the carpet and reprimanded for this unusual and unprofessional behavior. Just what did I think I was doing, I was asked. I explained that I am an amateur painter and planned to do some art work based on the photographed scene. With my fingers crossed I promised never to photograph anything in a clients house again. And I was told to bring in the proof of the finished painting to redeem myself. While other artists have used leaves to get themselves out of trouble (fig leaves and nudes), I got into trouble just by wanting to paint leaves.
At that time I did not realize that this particular client and his wife retired from the commercial art industry in San Francisco. My client worked as an artist and photographer. From the moment that I photographed the picture window, he and his wife became my mentors and friends in my various artistic endeavors. They have been encouraging and instrumental in taking me to a more sophisticated level of painting -that is to say using bigger, bolder, and livelier brush strokes instead of my usual nit picking with one hair brush. I usually visit with them once or twice a month and they have tutored me through at least a dozen paintings.
"Mrs. Schluer's Petunias," 11" x 15," Oil on Panel
Mrs. Schuler picked and arranged the petunias from her garden for me explaining that one approach to painting flowers is to show them from different angles and at various stages of their growth. Sometimes she would nudge a student away and take his place at the easel to show how the painting technique should proceed. At other times she would yell out - soak the rag in turpentine, wipe your mess off and start again. What ever she said, it was always a learning experience.
"Rose of Sharon," 10" x 12," Oil on Panel
The Schuler School of Fine Art is located in an old 19th Century building; it was designed as a sculpting studio and is protected by the American Historical Society. It has an extensive garden in the back and the Schuler family always has flowers for students to use in their paintings. The Rose of Sharon painting was done roughly as a study in a couple of session over the weekend.
"September Roses," 8" x 10," Oil on Panel
For some time I have attempted to get away from the typical tabletop still life - flowers in a vase and the like. These roses in front of our old fence offered a solution.
"Violin Sonata," 24" x 18," Oil on Linen
Most physical therapists in Sacramento, CA have volunteered at the Easter Seal Society as a way of gaining experience and getting their foot in the door. I was one of them, and years later had a six week affiliation as part of the physical therapy school curriculum.
During my affiliation I was assigned to work on a case involving a young man paralyzed from the waist down as a result of a stabbing related to drug lord wars. He was an artist so we shared some of our works. I related that I had a show with a gallery but they didn't ever sell any of my own or anybody else's artwork. He was sure that the gallery was a front for drug dealing. But, but .... I said the owners were a friendly ma and pa operation in a nice commercial area. Exactly - was his reply. I didn't fully believe him, but removed all of my paintings from that gallery. Fast forward - a decade later when I served on jury duty involving a criminal case and drug trafficking. At that point I became certain that he was right all along. Some of his work inspired me to to combine flowers and a musical theme. The music score in the painting is one of violin sonatas by Mozart. The brand new sheet music pages were soaked in strong tea to give them an antique appearance.
