Category Archives: Uncategorized

Rip-Rap: work in progress 8 4 2020

*Riprap, also known as rip rap, rip-rap, shot rock, rock armor, or rubble, is human-placed rock or other material used to armor shorelines, streambeds, bridge abutments, pilings and other shoreline structures against scour and water, wave, or ice erosion.

Yep, *Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Riprap

One of two larger works, in the works. Thinking of surf encountering “human placed” barriers to “erosion,” and the inherent drama therein.

Crazy day today. tropical storm Isaias’ pounding wind and rain in the morning, blue skies in the afternoon. I’d like to claim this as a tropical storm painting, but it was underway a week ago.

Here is a New Mexico painting “Jetty” that evokes a coastal storm:

Ironically “Jetty” was painted in the desert of southern New Mexico. Further irony is that it was made from a Masonite panel used as backer to route an X-Prize logo when I worked at the New Mexico Museum of Space History, Alamogordo. Here is the logo. It is “upside down” in painting:

Desert, space, surf. Desert space logo as coastal Jetty.

One of five Juror Choice awards, MFA Summer Show. Nice.

More creatures. Not for everybody. Right for somebody. Used to look like this:

Sayanara.

Haven’t worked like this for a while. Un-stretched. unprimed canvas. Stretched it’ll be about 60 X 30″ and look something like this:

I will work back into it once it is stretched and sealed. Time to roll it up for now.

Still Life with Potted Plant 48 X 30″

Jo Fleming Contemporary Gallery is open! I have five works on view. A few of these will be familiar to patrons of the Unsettled Gallery in Las Cruces. Fish, Cat, Accidental Skull, Black Eyed Susans was painted here in Shady Side last August. It has found a new home in Boston. Thanks to Jo for the opportunity to show in her wonderful gallery.

Burst 36 X 36″

Jo Fleming Contemporary Gallery is open! Hours: Wed – Sat, noon – 5pm.

Address: 68 Maryland Avenue, Annapolis, MD 21401, USA

I am so pleased that I was invited to provide an illustration for the book cover of my Friend Robert B. Ray’s latest book The Structure of Complex Images. Here: https://www.palgrave.com/gp/book/9783030406301

Robert has asked me to make brush & ink, pictographic images for a few projects over the years. Thanks Robert, for enriching life for me and so many others.

A shout out to Rachel Reese for making the art print-ready.

Aviary, March 22 – 25. In progress? Relative restraint and

muted palette after . . .

Grasping @ Koi, March 20 – 21.

I don’t generally paint in series, (click “series” or see previous post) but these are different times. Above finished(?) yesterday afternoon 4/11/20. There’s a back story to these bird/plant chimeras for some other day.

This painting was completed just before the painting/collage above. The Amaryllis that is blooming in the dining room is making a grand appearance here as well and is morphing into fauna above. The cadmium red is also about the cardinals visiting our feeders in their new spring plumage. Take care.

I am still growing accustomed to the rhythms and accommodations of making art in Shady Side, Maryland. In the winter months I work indoors for the most part, given the short, often cold and rainy days. I repair to the shed and work close-in with reading glasses on easel paintings lit by electricity. Big Gestures are restrained, and I tend to work with smaller brushes. This seems to be a good time for revisiting works that were set aside.