Landscape of Virginia

On a walk to my day job in the 1980's I would pass this non-important gas station on the main drag of West Main Street. Today its a new and different event taking such a meandering in Charlottesville, the buildings are all redone and new ten story hotels are being placed on that street. The old has been made new. I believe the term is re-gentrification. Such a change happened to this former gas station. It was a building I passed by and never really took a good look at because there wasn't anything 'noteworthy' for me to see in it. It was your average gas station with mechanics working on cars inside of its portals. But then came the changes and renewal occurred. While I don't like change for change sake, the re-gentrification of West Main Street has added some taste to that street's structures, such was what I saw in 'Whiting Oil Co.' It has had some new walls added, outdoor tables and new glass windows that made it somewhat unique to ot...

The realm of abstraction is an open ended place. My mind enjoys it. Its relaxing, a relaxing change from working on people and places in this world. An abstraction defies the physical laws of reality and thus is a fictional place with fictional people and object that done obey the laws of physics. This painting is one of such. I played with what we see in order to see what we normally don't. Its both a deep and surface treatment of what can be pictured on the picture plain. It is both meaningful and non-such in equal quantities. Its titled " A Non-Ordinary World" in an attempt to speak in an ecstatic manner about this life we live in the beginnings of the twenty first century.

The nature of art is expression for me, and for me to be expressive is to have another look at canvases I find dull. Such is was for this "Clothesline Abstract" painting done over the past week that sat around for months. It seemed to always be calling on me to do more whenever I took a look at it. Then after finishing an rather lifeless painting of a city street I took it up onto my easel. The canvas told me what it wanted me to do and so I got to it. The soul of this work of course can be seen on an earlier posting, but when I had the older painting on my easel it sat lifeless and bare. I applied what I knew about colors that work together to form a ribbon and put them on making a contour over some rather obnoxious lengthy forms. I'd like to say it made the painting all new and good but I think what it did was change it. It is a much different work now, it seems to me to be an altogether different painting now, one that I rather like. It will hang in the lo...

I found the scene along West Main is soon to change into an newer style cityscape of brick and glass with less ornamentation to its buildings. With this in mind I photographed some West Main Street buildings in the hopes of finding interesting scenes to paint. The signage is all a part of West Main and in that thought I painted this one with its graphic street crossing signage featured prominently in the picture plane. I highlighted the bricks in intense reds and developed the windows in a bizarre abstract display for each one of them. Each featuring one color being themed inside its frame as if each window display had its own abstract painting going on inside its area. Its all for the fun of it, I play with what is being viable to the view when I can. Nothing ventured nothing gained. It was nice how this one came together piece by piece with each painting session. Intense color came about as I developed its' scene on the sidewalk windows. I was going to bring in...

Sometimes I am at a loss as to what to use as subject matter for my creative juices but then I happen upon my truest love, my art equipment as my muses fixation. And so it is that I did this drawing of my brushes out on my art table. I do this to take a break from the worktime using my oils. One needs a change of pace I believe don't you think?

Moving the sun further away is sometimes wish of mine. Here I stretch towards it moving upward cursing the withered branch that gives no shade while my friend covers the eyes of a laughing sun. Meaning; "Its hot, calm down sun."

The roads today are full of unusual cars and jets just spewing their gaseous plumes overhead.