I thought that this all started out with a suggestion from
my parents. "You should paint some fish". I painted two pieces for them based on their measurements to be placed in their
home near the Delaware coast. They never did say which measurements were length and which were width - or I never asked. In
either case, both paintings were reversed in dimension from what my folks had wanted. So, they went into the hallway and living
room.
Here's what they look like.
(Below)
Bay Floor
30" W X 20" H
December 25, 2003
Catalogue #63
(Private Collection)
(Below)
Keeper Weakfish
16" W X 9" H
December 25, 2003
Catalogue # 62
(Private Collection)
Then I looked through my portfolio and searched my memory.
I noted that there were two very early pieces which fell into this catagory. The first is the first piece I ever painted which
was a gift to my wife and which she has hung in a place of prominance. I never even photographed it. It had a brushed background,
and used high-texture paints to produce the figurative portions of the painting.... It is a view of birch trees at the edge
of the Cumberland Plateau in Tennessee as the leaves were falling
The second was a piece reflecting my love of caving (outsiders of the activity call
it spelunking). It was an abstract representation of the entrance to a favorite cave I explored for many years. The area had
many flowers and plants which are limited to the vicinity of the sinkhole, owing to the specialized microclimate present
there.
(Above)
Richardson's Cave Sinkhole
18" W X 12" H
Post February 2001
Catalogue #8
Then, looking through the portfolio further,
I found further examples of what could be considered to fall into the same category prior to the creation of the first fish
paintings.
Since childhood, I have been drawn to the glowing
colors which Maxxfield Parrish imbued his paintings with. As an adult, I have been fortunate enough to view a privately
held Parrish in the space it was painted for. That particular piece was created as a personal favor for a client and
friend who'd had the paint peel off the canvas Parrish created years before. Thus, in the painter's output, this
replacement piece had been completed long after he had supposedly ceased to work in this earlier motif. To view Parrish's
work in books is one thing, to view it up close is an entirely different experience.
My wife works in Philadelphia and a colleague
of hers tipped her off to another genuine American cultural treasure which combines two of my artistic favorites, Tiffany
favrille glass and the work of Maxxfield Parrish. The piece is entitled "The Dream Garden" and is an execution in minute detail,
on an enormous scale, of a Parrish piece of the same title. The work is a mosaic of over 1,000,000 pieces of favrille glass
and is easily 20 feet long by 10 feet high. It lives in the Curtis Building in Philadelphia. Everyone should see it once in
their lives.
I was inspired to produce a piece loosely interpreting
this masterpiece. I do not think I will ever be able to work with such precision and with such color command as Parrish, but
this was my humble tribute to this piece:
(Above)
Homage To The Dream Garden
12" W X 18" H
April/May 2003
Catalogue #15
So, now I start to work through the portfolio refreshing
myself with my earlier works...And voila, more examples leading to the fish paintings!
(Above)
Flowing Water, Forests, Fields and Fallow Ground:
Impressions of Delaware, New Jersey and Pennsylvania
24" W X 18" H
December 2003
Catalogue #25
(SOLD)
(Above)
They Don't Fall Far From The Tree
9" W X 12" H
February 2003
Catalogue #34 - [SOLD]
This crabapple tree and the forsythia were located in my
side yard, Sadly, the crabapple was diseased and had to be removed. It appears that the fruit and leaf litter may have provided
the basis for the mushrooms which annually appeared in fall. The title may leave you wondering; and so it was intended to
do.
And so we return to the fish paintings..... After the paintings
my parents asked for were created, the thought amongst my parents and my wife was that a series of fish paintings might be
a popular item for folks who had relocated down by the shore in southern Delaware. The rate of growth (population and housing
starts), along with the shrinking of agricultural lands held in families for multiple generations suggested to me that there
had to be a lot of empty wall space in the Delaware beach resort areas...
Now one has to realize, though, that there's a large population
of artists in these resort areas. In fact it has been suggested that one trips over them and that you couldn't swing a deceased
feline without hitting one (no offense to the animal rights folks, please...it's just a phrase).
Still, I created a series of paintings with fish as a theme.
Some are single 18 X 24's, while others are either 9 X 12's, or 12 X 18's created as matched pairs... Most of these pairs
have left the nest to live with other folks, but there are a few still available.
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Striped Bass
18" H X 24" W
December 28, 2003
Catalogue #64
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Bluefish #2
9" H X 12" W
January 11, 2004
Catalogue #66B
(SOLD)
Bluefish #1
9" H X 12" W
January 11, 2004
Catalogue #66A
(SOLD)
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Spot #1
9" H X 12" W
January 12, 2004
Catalogue #67A - (SOLD)
Croaker #1
9" H X 12" W
January 12, 2004
Catalogue #67B - (SOLD)
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Weakfish #1
9" H X 12" W
January 13, 2004
Catalogue #68A
(SOLD)
Spotted Seatrout #1
9" H X 12" W
January 13, 2004
Catalogue #68B
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Spotted Seatrout #2
9" H X 12" W
January 21, 2004
Catalogue #69B
(SOLD)
Weakfish #2
9" H X 12" W
January 21, 2004
Catalogue #69A
(SOLD)
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Steelhead Trout
16" H X 27.25" W
February 23, 2004
Catalogue #72
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Red, White and Bluefish #1
9" H X 18" W
March 13, 2004
Catalogue #74A
(SOLD)
Red, White and Bluefish #2
9" H X 18" W
March 13, 2004
Catalogue #74B
(SOLD)
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Weakfish #3
9" H X 18" W
March 13, 2004
Catalogue #75A
(AVAILABLE)
Better pricing if you buy the pair
Spotted Seatrout #3
9" H X 18" W
March 13, 2004
Catalogue #75B
(AVAILABLE)
Better pricing if you buy the pair
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Tautog In The Current
9" H X 18" W
March 15, 2004
Catalogue #76B
(SOLD)
Tautog In The Eddy
9" H X 18" W
March 15, 2004
Catalogue #76A
(SOLD)
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Spotted Seatrout #4
9" H X 18" W
March 14, 2004
Catalogue #77B
Weakfish #4
9" H X 18" W
March 15, 2004
Catalogue #77A
(SOLD)
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Spot School #1
9" H X 18" W
March 17, 2004
Catalogue #78A
(SOLD)
Spot School #2
16" W X 9" H
March 17, 2004
Catalogue #78B
(SOLD)
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Red Drum #2
9" H X 18" W
March 18, 2004
Catalogue #79B
(AVAILABLE)
Better pricing if you buy the pair
Red Drum #1
9" H X 18" W
March 18, 2004
Catalogue #79A
(AVAILABLE)
Better pricing if you buy the pair
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Doormat Flounder
18" H X 24" W
March 19, 2004
Catalogue #80 -
(SOLD)
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So, after the fish were complete, I pondered a next move.
I completed a realistic series of greyhounds and a pair of Delaware landscapes.
Then my wife and I went to Washington D.C. with friends to
see the Cherry Blossom Festival. We picked up the metro at Greenbelt, Maryland and took it right into central D.C.
We had a great time and spent some time wandering about
afterwards taking pictures and exploring. Sooner than later, it was time to go. We found an entry into the metro and headed
on down. While standing on the platform, I looked about and noted the huge vaulted ceiling constructed of architectural concrete
and the expanse of people subtlely illuminated across the tracks. This space was the intersection of two metro lines.
I snapped several pictures with my trusty digital camera
and we rode home. I played with the downloaded photos a bit and came up with a cropped image which exuded a certain feel which
lent itself to a painting..... The result is found below...
(Below)
The Yellow Line
18" W X 24" H
November 15, 2004
Catalogue #90
Is this an abstraction of reality? Well, possibly. This scene from the French Quarter
of New Orleans came from a photo which is a street view of life shortly after Christmas. People don't take down their decorations
in the French Quarter so much as they change them as one celebratory season melds into the other. In this painting, a limited
amount of raised texture paint was used in comparison to the amount of brush work painting.
The background is a semblence of the my sense of the"Auburn Sky" from Don Henley's
song "Sunset Grill". I know Henley was speaking to the dissolute life of LA's Sunset Strip, but to me, the French Quarter
of New Orleans is both the Street Of Dreams and Heart of Darkness. The beautiful people visit in waves as each convention
toddles through town, but the Lucky Dog man, the homeless, the street people (by choice) and the service industry poor
remain.
This painting has it's origins in an out of focus
digital image captured on
St. Peters Street. I painted the image at the encouragement
of my wife without knowing exactly where the image had been captured in the French Quarter. I titled it as such because
it appeared that there were two people present, with one seemingly using an ATM while the other waited...
However, during January 2007, My wife and I were visiting the
New Orleans Lapidary (one of our favorite places to shop for bling of all sorts). As we approached from the north, I saw the
cascading red lights and realized that this was the location of the image I had painted from. So, if some art historian in
the future tries to track this painting's perspective location, it is of the sidewalk and entry of the New Orleans Lapidary
as viewed from the northwest looking southeast.
(Below)
Scenes From The French Quarter:
Waiting At The ATM
18" W X 24" H
February 10, 2005
Catalogue #93
(below)
Great Blue Heron #1
18" H X 12" W
June 7, 2006
Catalogue #127
(SOLD)
(below)
Great Blue Heron #2
18"H X 12"W
June 9, 2006
Catalogue #128
(SOLD)
(below)
Hey Taxi ! #1 - Checkered Crab
12" H X 18" W
June 9, 2006
Catalogue #129
(SOLD)
(below)
Hey Taxi ! #2 - Yellow Crab
12" H X 18" W
June 21, 2006
Catalogue #130
(SOLD)
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