MY ARTWORK
As a small child, I spent countless hours drawing tanks, planes, soldiers and explosions. I am not sure if that qualifies as an early interest in art or just a boyhood fascination with war. I started painting deliberately when I was about 13 years old, working in watercolor and oil, and began selling watercolor paintings (mostly seascapes) my freshman year in high school. In my sophomore year, a fire in my home destroyed all of my art supplies, sans my sturdy metal easel, which I still have. At that point my interests drifted to cars, girls, ice hockey and after school employment. Still, art remained a part of my life.
In my last two years of high school, I abstained from courses like physics and calculus, and instead focused my junior and senior year taking art classes. Upon graduation from high school in 1979, I enrolled in a civil engineering program at Drexel university. As it turned out, my sole focus in high school on art classes did not fully prepare me for an undergraduate engineering program. Fortunately for me, I had a disciplined freshman year roommate that taught me how to be successful as a student (Thank you Phil) and I was able to complete my B.S. degree at Drexel and then my M.S. and Ph.D. degrees at Cornell University. (A note of advice at this point to any young person reading this: think more carefully than I did about the high school classes you take. Strive for balance. Study music and art and literature, but also study math and physics and chemistry. It is your understanding of all of these subjects that will enable you to more profoundly experience the world around you).
I basically did nothing art related while I was an undergraduate. As a graduate student, I resumed limited drawing and started painting in acrylics, mostly using watercolor techniques. I struggled with significant health issues during my first years in graduate school. With most of my plans falling apart and my goals receding from view, painting and drawing became not only an important distraction, but also a way for me to recapture a sense of self-worth.
I joined the faculty at Lehigh University in 1990. This was the beginning of a long dormant period in my art life. My focus was on career, and eventually on family too when kids came along.
In my home office with Bob Dylan - Big Blue Chair.
When I turned 40 years old (in 2001) my wife Monika gave me a set of oil paints. I never opened the box. When I turned 50 (in 2011), my wife gave me another set of oil paints, and this time she also enrolled me in a painting studio class at the Baum School. This turned out to be one of the greatest gifts anyone has ever given to me (thank you Monika). In the past 5+ years at the Baum School I rediscovered my love for the smell of linseed oil and the feel of a brush against canvas. At the Baum School, I have been guided by great instructors (Thank you Dana and Adriano). While work and family still sometimes require a brief hiatus from painting, I am never far away from my next attempt at my best painting ever.
Below are examples and descriptions of some of my work.
UNTITLED / Oil on board / 16 x 16
Many of my paintings are derived from black and white photographs, including this one. The advantage of working from a black and white original is I am not forced in to any particular direction with color. The disadvantage of course is that I have no idea what color to paint the image. This particular painting was also my first attempt at reductive painting. It was actually a lot of fun to do. I will also post some progression photographs to show the evolution of the painting using the reductive technique.
UNTITLED / Oil on board
This is my redo of a painting by Jeremy Mann. His cityscapes and portraits are unbelievable. If you are not already familiar with his work, please look him up, you will be glad that you did. I still spend countless hours looking at his work on-line. I also hope to see it in person some day.
BOB DYLAN - BIG BLUE CHAIR / Oil on canvas / 24 x 24
This series of photographs shows the progression of work on this painting. I am not sure that the final image is of the finished work, but if not, it is pretty close to final. I painted this from a black and white photograph. After finishing the painting and while looking for more Dylan photographs on-line, I actually found a color version of the photograph. This particular painting hangs in my home office in a really nice frame that is reminiscent of a 1960's vibe. I am a big Dylan fan - I painted this before he won the Nobel Prize.
SELF PORTRAIT / Oil on board / 12 x 16
Yes, this is pretty much what I look like. Enough said.
READING TERMINAL / Oil on board / 20 x 16
This painting is from a black and white photograph inside the Reading Terminal in Philadelphia. I used to commute to work through this terminal in the early 1980's. Reading Terminal is no longer in active service, but instead is now part of the convention center in downtown Philadelphia. I was at a workshop there in September 2016 and I went and stood at the spot where the photograph was made that was used as the basis for the painting.
(IN PROGRESS) / Oil on canvas / 24 x 24
This is still a work in progress. Again, this painting is based on a black and white photograph. The photograph is truly haunting - the landscape is barren, and the dead litter a foreground that is an amalgam of snow and mud. I debated whether I should even use the photograph as the foundation for a painting. The colors of this painting are not reproduced correctly in the photograph shown here, but the colors shown here capture the mood much better than what I actually painted. I added the trees to the composition, twisting and shattering them to reflect the anguish of the living and the dead.
UNTITLED / Oil on board / 16 x 12
This is my redo of a painting I found on-line. I am sorry I did not note the original artist so I can't provide proper attribution here. This was one of the early works I painted when I first resumed painting. Rather than spend a lot of time worrying about composition etc., redoing other works allowed me to practice and evolve my technique and voice.
UNTITLED / Oil on board / 12 x 10
This is another early redo of a painting I found on-line. Again, I did not note the original artist so I can't provide proper attribution here.
UNTITLED / Oil on board / 20 x 16
I painted this from two images that I merged together. One image was of the river and bridges, and the other image was of the sky. The image of the sky was used to mostly to develop the color palette.
More to be added in the near future. Please check back again.