Blog — .

Yes, I know, it’s been over a year since my first, uh last post. I know. I promise I will do better. 2020 was a bear, we all know that. 2021 has been somewhat more bear-able, but still lacking in normalcy. Not sure I would recognize that if I fell over it now. But hey, I’ve managed to get a lot of work done, some might even say a body of work, while laying low and dodging cooties. As a reclusive artist I was kind of born for a pandemic.

The thing about websites is, well, they’re a pain. Wait, what, you shifted gears on me! Sorry. Websites are things that we are told as creative people trying to sell our wares, are necessities. We need them. I guess. I mean no one likes perusing another artist’s website more than I, but unless you are “born to money”, you must build and maintain your own.

The website thing is a love/hate relationship. I mean, you pull your hair out and curse, a lot. You take Forrest Gump level walks to ease your stress and anxiety. You sit for so long at a time, convincing yourself that that you got this, until the feeling in your legs has all but oozed down your twirly studio chair to the floor in an odd circular pile of goo that you were not aware of. You try to get up and nearly fall across your studio floor. Then, out of pure fear of failure and a gnawing reminder that you are paying for this failure annually, you call your NASA engineer son in Huntsville, “please son, can you help your ole man get this thing done. Please. I’ve been going in circles for hours.” Suddenly, after a chat and some adjustments that I know I knew about, things are working a bit better, you see things in a better light. Suddenly, you can see why this website thingy is important. Dang, that looks pretty good after all.

So, there you are, after sweating bullets all day over things that were relatively easy, if you had known how to do them, of course, it kind of gave you a twisted sort of sense of pride in this thing. I mean, there’s a body of work staring back at you for all the world to see, potentially. Suddenly, you’re seeing dollar signs from all the paintings and prints you will sell from this fabulous invention called a website! So, you press on.

It’s late. Your eyes are burning. Your neck is stiff and sore from a very long day of NOT painting. You still haven’t gotten the feeling back in your legs, nor the goo cleaned up from your studio floor. You look over at your easel. There, unfinished work looking back at you, calling your name, work that you KNOW you can manage and with so much pride and joy, the work you were born to do. You KNOW you can sit down there and paint for hours on end and never complain a minute. You can get lost in your work for hours, not knowing or caring what time of day it is. You can completely control the outcome of this thing called art. YOU are in control. You are the master of your realm.

Okay, I will be the master of this domain, uh, realm tomorrow. The website won this day, fare and square. Tomorrow, I paint!

-30-

Okay, so it’s not exactly my first blog post ever, but this is the first on my new website. I had another blog a few years ago that I posted for several years, mostly about my work and my process. It no longer exists, sadly. Somehow it was swallowed up into the bowels of the blogosphere, or wherever old digitalia go to languish.

This blog will have a similar focus, talking about my art and that of others on occassion, my process, my influences, subject interests (no, it won’t be ALL about cars and racing, but…) and whatever else my mind can muster of interest.

So, with this “new” start, for those of you who may not know my history, I am a former newspaper art director, illustrator, cartoonist and designer, whew. After that long chapter of my life ended several years ago, I began painting full time. I have tried every art “ism” around to “find myself”. It’s been an up and down struggle and has made me more than a little crazy at times. Just ask my long-suffering bride. I have done everything from large, detailed (some would say photorealistic) train and car paintings, to landscapes, both realistic and impressionistic, to caricatures in oils and watercolors, to total abstracts, and pretty much everything in between. My small studio runneth over.

I have always loved cars and motor sports of all kinds, so that is an easy target for me. Something about passion comes to mind. So almost ten years ago on a whim, I sat at my drawing board one day and drew a car caricature, the first one since my late teens, other than a few I did in cartoons during my newspaper career. It was the most fun I had had in a long time. My teen years came rushing back. My early art influences of the day, #Dave Bell of #Street Rodder Magazine, #Dave “Big” Deal, one of the most influential car-toonists in the last fifty years, and others became not-so-quiet muses banging around in the portals of my creative psyche. The next thing I knew I was starting one in oils on canvas, a little black ‘40 Ford Coupe (see said Coupe above) with wide whitewalls, my favorite American classic car. I was thrilled and at once pleased with something I’d created, a rare moment for me.

So, for several years I have continued to paint these little cars I love so much, not having a clue what to do with them, while working my more “serious fine art” into the mix. I still question myself daily, as I am sure most of my family do, on why I keep painting them. I have no clue other than they provide me with great joy and a healthy challenge in draftmanship, design, color… Hmm, sounds like art to me!