PAINTINGS 001 - 010
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Painting No. 107 - The Artist, Olga and Child in 1991
Photo courtesy Todd DellaBella
I spent a little more than 11 years being a professional fine art painter. From Saturday 9/19/1987 through Thursday 1/21/1999 I created over 300 paintings in San Francisco and Sebastopol, California, USA. Most of the paintings are on canvas, with some being on mixed media such as paper, cloth, string, rice, noodles, sawdust and wood, and a couple are digital paintings that were created towards the end of the 11+ year run.
My goal was to paint every idea and inspiration that came to me, without holding back or allowing any fear or negative consideration to prevent me from exploring my ideas and ideals. This goal included the notion of painting pictures that would become successful sellers and important art historical pieces like the paintings of Jasper Johns, yet have enough street cred to become iconic groundbreakers like the work of Jean Michel Basquiat, to name just a couple of influencial painters. My goal also included making a living solely off the sales of my paintings.
This goal was not embraced at the time by my mother Carol Ann because she thought that the main reason I was painting was to sell my work and felt that was the wrong reason to do the work. Of course she was right regarding this opinion but was wrong about the reason I was painting. I tried to counter with the fact that selling my work was not the only reason I was painting, but simply a means to allow me to continue to paint. She gave me her famous look of doubt that only an artist mother can deliver to her artist son, yet I stood my ground and proceeded with my goal anyway. It didn't help that she also felt artistically competitive with me, which I didn't realize until a few years later. Nevertheless I had no intention of being a painter who never marketed their paintings or who painted as a hobby. I wanted the world to see and know my work, for better or worse and pretty much at any cost.
As it turned out and as evidenced in my later paintings, my ensuing creative psychosis that was borne out of my making the paintings and then having to market and sell the paintings in a crazy mixed up art world that couldn't care less about me and my paintings, would eventually overtake my drive and desire to continue painting...
taken near the CCAC campus in Oakland, CA. 1987
Oil on canvas - 15-1/2 in. x 21-5/8 in.
Saturday 9/19/1987 - Collection of the Artist
Oil on canvas - 18 in. x 14 in.
Friday 10/2/1987 - Private Collection
Oil on canvas - 20 in. x 26 in.
Sunday 11/27/1987 - Collection of the Artist
The first three paintings shown above were created using oil paints, utilizing some fairly traditional surrealist techniques along with borrowing imagery from photographs. These three paintings each took a long time to complete as oil paint takes a certain amount of time to dry and so I had to wait and paint in layers as each painting dried, a rather painstaking process.
After completing the third painting I traveled up to Sebastopol from San Francisco to visit my mother and help her stretch new canvases for her own paintings, as well as to show her these three paintings. Carol Ann was herself an accomplished artist and musician, with a long history of being a very skilled painter, ceramicist, and classical pianist. And like most accomplished creative people, she had strong opinions about how art should be done.
I was quite proud of my work as I displayed these three paintings to her, but while she was appreciative, she wasn't entirely as impressed as I had hoped for. There was some mention of my use of strong primary colors as a negative aspect. Then she asked if I ever worked with acrylic paints and I answered that I had not up to that point. She said they're great because they dried very quickly which allowed her a freedom in her abstract paintings to make changes rapidly and finish her paintings more efficiently.
We continued chatting as I began stretching and stapling the new roll of canvas to the new stretcher bars, always glad to lend my skills to help her have fresh canvases to work on. She was so grateful for my help and enthusiastic about sharing the use of acrylic paint with me that she gave me two of the canvases I just assembled and invited me to paint with her using her acrylics and brushes. I started work on Paintings 004 and 005 (below) during that visit. I chose to work solely from my imagination as I didn't come prepared with any prior ideas nor any photo references. I was in fact free to just let my mind wander onto the canvas. And I was both surprised and elated as to what was developing before me on the blank canvas.
Carol Ann was entirely right about the acrylic paints: they dried fast and felt completely different from oil paints. They lent themselves to impulsive choice making and if I didn't like what I saw I could paint over it almost immediately. Because they are water based, I could paint on the raw freshly stretched canvas without first having to cover the canvas with a gesso primer, normally used to protect the raw canvas from the harmful effects of oil paints. Working with the acrylic paints was like being transported instantly to nirvana. I couldn't believe what was happening as I was painting because it was so much fun. And since I was painting purely instinctively and making random choices regarding paint color, form and composition, I didn't know what I was painting until after I took the unfinished paintings home to finish them...
Acrylic on canvas - 30 in. x 36 in.
Monday 1/4/1988 - Collection of the Artist
Acrylic on canvas - 32 in. x 26 in.
Thursday 1/7/1988 - Collection of the Artist
Acrylic on canvas - 36 in. x 42 in.
Thursday 1/14/1988 - Collection of the Artist
Painting No. 006 shows my extraordinary happiness with now using only acrylic paints to work with. It's also a rather silly painting and I didn't care. I still don't. Because it simply conveys my mentality at the time which was filled with unplanned escapism and freedom. When I was studying and creating illustration my focus in the work was all about exact details, precision and representation. Illustration was demanding and challenging art to make. This silly painting was nothing but FUN to make and free from all prior constraints whatsoever. This painting speaks of a personal relationship I was in that I needed to exit, which corresponded perfectly with my conscious exit from the world of professional illustration.
Acrylic on canvas - 30 in. x 36 in.
Monday 1/18/1988 - Private Collection
Acrylic on canvas - 32 in. x 26 in.
Thursday 2/11/1988 - Collection of the Artist
Throughout this site I make reference to certain paintings that just feel perfect to me. Alive Again is the first painting that came upon me effortlessly and without much hesitation. I didn't have to think too much nor work too hard to arrive at this completion. Each time I see it I get that same hit of satisfaction and contentment that I felt when I originally painted it. This kind of overall instantaneous pleasure is one of the many benefits I discovered from being a painter.
Acrylic and pre-printed calendar numbers on canvas - 24 in. x 30 in.
Wednesday 3/30/1988 - Collection of the Artist
With No. 009 Transforming The Climb I once again employ the use of stairs as a motif like I did in No. 004 Remembering What It Was Like. The stairs represent both a way out of the painting or a way to a different reality other than the one shown in the painting. Stairs for me also represent transformational growth both spiritually and emotionally. They add a sense of being able to climb or descend into other states of being at any moment just by utilizing them, either as a viewer outside the painting or as a subject within the painting.
Transforming The Climb was also the first abstract painting I made where I allowed myself to have no idea about a subject or object, beyond the stairs and words of course. The words came last, almost a reminder to myself that I didn't know what "This Is?" To allow myself this kind of ambiguity in my art was a big step for me emotionally, having just spent the last few years in college learning how to create the artistic illusions of reality through traditional illustration. To not know what I was painting nor how it would equate to making money so I could pay my rent and eat was both terrifying and exilerating.
Acrylic on canvas - 40 in. x 32 in.
Saturday 4/30/1988 - Private Collection
