Writing

A different way to enjoy my work, through the written words, notes, and poems that pour out alongside the artwork, and sometimes all on their own…


Ephemeral Records

04/15/2016

At high tide that rock with the trees on it is an island, but at low tide you can walk right out to it. Over 20 years ago I ventured out to it with a friend, our minds set on climbing up to the top of it.

Except neither she nor I were the climbing types, we were just a couple of wide-eyed college kids, checking out this great big world that we were supposed to make sense of real soon.

We approached the base and made our way to the north, then to the south then back again, looking for some non-death-inducing route up the vertical side. After a few false starts, we surrendered and made our way back to the beach.

As soon as we reached the sand, we looked back and saw a couple of people climbing down off the rock. Their fluid movements made their descent look effortless. As we stood there watching their route, we realized it was a young couple, not much older than us, who were oddly... not really wearing any clothes?

Ok, she wore some tiny bikini bottoms, and a jacket that she took off and gave to him once they made it off the rock and back on to the ground. But that was it. No shoes, no shirts, no pants. Just a couple of nearly naked hippie kids making this daunting climb look like a stroll on the beach.

We watched in amusement, from a respectful distance, and after a quick discussion, we decided that we would just wait for them to wander off back into the forest from whence they came and then make our way back out, and follow the route they took. After all, we had jeans, and shirts. We even had boots on. We could do this.

And we did.

Going up was not hard at all now that we knew what line to take. Making our way all the way up and over, we enjoyed the afternoon up there lounging on the grassy meadow that looked out toward the slowly setting sun.

We sat there watching the white trails drifting out from the various rockstacks, and shallow waters where the waves churn the ocean into a thick foam. We began to see them that day as ephemeral recordings of the ocean’s rhythms, songs recorded on the water, every set leaving a thicker trail, and the calmer moments a barely visible line. The record player spinning at the speed of the ocean’s current.

Seeing the tide had turned, it was time to leave or else we’d be facing a pretty good soaking trying to get back across the tidepools to the beach.

And yes, in case you were wondering, we kept our clothes on the whole time.

Remember I said we weren’t the climbing types? If we had been, we’d have known that climbing down is a much more difficult challenge than climbing up. We discovered that shortly.

The upper portion wasn’t too bad, there were plenty of tree roots to grab hold of as we made our way down the eroded hilltop on our way to the steeper rock face below. That rock face itself was fairly easy to climb as well, consisting of solid rock with lots of cracks and features to provide good hand and footholds. The zone in t…

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Higher Education

04/05/2016

My favorite part of painting this one wasn’t painting at all. It was watching my home-schooled 13 year old daughter charging the waist high lefts out there all alone, figuring out the lineup, waiting for sets, eating it, making others, and just generally getting after it. Ok. Carry on…


Primarily Speaking

03/18/2016

One of my favorites from my “From Scratch” show. Easy to overlook, but symbolic of my whole approach to art. Flowing water vibes and a nod to the three primary colors I use. Every painting I make uses just red, yellow, blue and white. Every black, brown, green, gray or whatever is mixed individually from those same primaries. Keeps things simple, and keeps the colors connected.


Body of Water (The Red Door)

02/07/2016

Prologue Never, have I ever, painted live at a church // In these halls where language like an eagle soars // Hunting an explanation but seldom willing to explore // Beyond the war that leaves words stripped to their core // And the tension left behind that gives us sometimes something more // Than the eagle’s lifeless prey giving one last lurch // No, I have never painted at a church // At least not inside one // Or with permission // Thanks for having me // It’s good to be here // This year // 2024 years ago tonight // I wasn’t there, neither were you, things to do // Mostly laundry // Dingy gray rags, smeared with chocolate and mud, add some crimson detergent blood, they come out white like the tops of the clouds after the flood // Dressed to the nines, you made it to church on time // Good job, modern man… kind // You’re looking good in this temple // Have you ever seen a house of God quite like this? // A temple court // A basketball court // Yet bearing one another’s likeness // Yes, basketball // Basketball is people // Just like church // Paint them both with the red flags of the nations // And watch their colors drip and bleed // Down bright green leaves beneath a hot Tibetan sun // Their colors run // With ice blue prayers down a white mountain stream // How can this be? // It’s color theory and I know it doesn’t sound right // But yes // Red // Can indeed // If everything’s right // Red can indeed make white The Red Door I: Face Thyself I won’t bore you with all the color theory // But there is something you must know // Before we go // Any further // Into the light tonight // Where it’s the presence of all colors // And not their absence // That makes the purest white // Every potential, every wavelength // Present // In the brightness of the whitest light // But tonight? // I am here to paint // With words of reflection // And when it comes to reflections // To the color of objects // To our own complexions // To the shimmering of flesh and blood // To the material world that merely reflects the light it does not comprehend // Here, white is something different // Here, where all potentials collapse into one outcome // Here, white is void // White is absence // White is the emptiness between all colors // And here on this reflected side of light // There are three // A trinity // Blue // Yellow // And Red // Every color we can see comes from white and just these three // White the dove, white the light, white the wool of the lamb // Blue the sea, blue the sky, blue the water behind the dam // Yellow the flower, yellow the submarine, yellow the sun on the corner of the child’s page // Red // Red the door, red the rum, red the rust on the bars of the child’s cage // Red, the color of salvation // Red // Red the door // Painted with the blood of the passover lamb // Oh Death // Pass over us // Oh God // Deliver us // Let all the colors of this temple // That is our ver…

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Reclamation

02/07/2016

Written on April 22, 2020

Painting at the Jambalaya was always a wild time. A small space with a loud sound, and excited music fans moving with abandon, meant that my spot to post up was on the floor directly beside one of the speakers getting my ears blown out and going with the flow of knocks and bounces from dancers all swirling in one collective rhythm.

And with all that going on, I’d watch these unplanned visions emerge from the canvas as I swirled paint along with the moment. A gas mask, discarded, lying in a shallow puddle with fresh spring growth emerging. The mask no longer needed. But why not? Because there was no one left to need it? Or was the time of need simply over? I wasn’t thinking this through while painting, there wasn’t time in that high-octane environment to separate thought from action… There seems to be rusting metal nearby. The water acidic. But the sky blue. A single bird reflected in the glass of the mask flies overhead. I saw it emerge like Noah’s dove that returned with a branch in it’s beak. A sign that we’d soon be able to get off this blasted boat we’ve been stuck on during this 40 day storm. The time to rebuild would come soon.

Holy moly. I miss that stuff. I know a lot of you do too. There is nothing like good live music and the feeling of being caught up in the moment.


Sunday Skylark

January 1, 2016

A recent studio commission. I reckon if I’d tried to paint this one on location standing in the middle of PCH, I’d likely have ended up dead, hospitalized, or in jail before finishing. It’s no secret that I prefer the Studio of the Open Sky these days, but that’s not to say I don’t appreciate the quiet simplicity of the home studio where one can paint anything that comes to mind without even leaving the house. But I ramble…


Chasing Gold

December 24, 2015

It’s funny. Here is one of the major epicenters of California. You’d think that, given its importance to the state, I’d have spent a lot of time painting this stretch of coast.

I haven’t. I’ve mostly avoided it, to be honest. It’s hard to find parking. It’s stressful. It seems to be one of those areas where people will walk right over you and not think twice. Especially if there’s a celebrity nearby. And there often is.

The most troubling part of it all is that it leaves you very few choices. Adapt, or be trampled. The aggressive side of our human nature seems tailor-made for places like this where sixteen lanes of speeding metal spiral their way around this basin in a mad rush to get down the drain.

Drive in at night for best effect. Go a little faster. Turn the radio up. Marvel at the police
helicopters shouting orders at the moon. Laugh when it resists arrest.

Love it or hate it, this is also California.

When I was asked to create this painting for the California Gold Vintage Surf Auction, I
knew I’d be keen to redeem the coast here from the stereotypes that are so common… and so commonly true. I wanted to show another side of this coast that I love.

The hills outside of the city are breathtaking, and while much of them are owned and
divided among the millionaires, they are largely undeveloped as well. These open space Old Testaments tell of the way things have always been. The moon rises and sets unimpeded out here, the same as it always has. And while the city is full of dreams and ghosts, busy chasing gold in the fast lane, the rabbit trails outside of town are paved with it.


Chipps and Salsa

December 20, 2015

Honored to be selected as the official event artist for the 2015 Luau & Legends of Surfing Invitational coming up later this summer on August 9. Every year a new artist is commissioned to create their own variation of the event location, Scripps Pier in La Jolla, CA. This incredible event has been running for 22 years to raise funds for UC San Diego’s Moores Cancer Center. Here is what I came up with for this year’s piece, proudly dedicated to my sister Heather recently lost to cancer.


Upholstery and Smoke

November 22, 2015

She was just a child
Leading the Rebellion
With discarded toys.
Striking out
At them.
At us.
At herself.
And though she made a fool of the Enemy
Throughout the Ten Year War
She lost the Final Battle yesterday.

And now she is gone.

She left home too soon.
There was heaviness in the entry way
As she said her goodbyes.
We did not understand why.
Our parents cried.

She picked us up in her Chevy Nova at the age of sixteen.
We were only nine.
She smoked cigarettes like a real grown up.
We couldn’t see the road.
Just the upholstery and the smoke.
She gave us punk rock.
She bought us pizza.

She fought like hell.

If we’d learned anything from her
Perhaps we could fight back these tears right now.
But every drop is a salty rebellion
Led by a mere child
With discarded toys.
She was never one to be easily denied.

Goodbye Sister.


Just Before the Fog Never Quite Burned Off

11/20/2015

Plein air from yesterday. Left my brush roll in the studio and had to makeshift with some random brushes dug up in the crevasses of my van. Then hiked up to this spot and went to setup and realized I left my canvas in the van, by the the time I walked all the way down and got got back up here the fog had only gotten thicker, so I had to just noodle around with the foreground for awhile. The forecast called for sun sooner or later. Maybe it was later, we left before then. But yeah, finally the fog lifted just enough to see the beach across the harbor and I was able to lay this one out and had it all blocked in, then sat around waiting, eating sandwiches, pestering my painting buddy Steve Taylor, just waiting for the weather to really shift. Finally had to go for it as it was, slapped it together and called it a day. At least it never rained.


To Air is Human

11/15/2015

Written on April 21, 2020

The name of the band that played that night I painted this was Terrapin Flyer if I remember correctly- a Grateful Dead cover band. I never was all that into the ol’ GD, but that’s not to say I don’t appreciate their music, so it was a ton of fun to hear those familiar tunes played loud and live as they should be. I was in the back of the hall painting with my back to the stage so I never really saw them up there, I was just absorbed in the movement and music and the somewhat troubling scene unfolding on this canvas before my eyes. But the band did a great job and from where I stood and how I experienced the whole thing, Jerry himself may as well have been up there.

But that was before this wave of fear and death began to sweep over the entire world. Looking at this painting now gives me the eebie jeebies. Why can’t I just paint happy trees all the time? What undercurrent was this tapping into anyway? Was this art imitating life, or is this life imitating art?

Either way, here we are now. My heart is breaking for all the live music that is just not happening anymore. As an artist, of course I am concerned for my livelihood in the face of the hard years to come, but then then I think of the musicians severed from their audiences, let alone any income from the gigs they used to rely upon. How long will it be before shows can be booked again? Even if the stores and galleries are re-opened, won’t large public gatherings be the last thing to remain banned for a much longer time? And even without all this, there wasn’t there some legal mess of a new law regarding gig workers as employees that was looming over the entire live music industry here? Dark days indeed.

I miss the music.


Water’s Edge

11/13/2015

Painted in the midst of a whole herd of landscape artists, several of whom I’ve looked up to for years, so I was stoked I didn’t botch this one, even though it is a rather odd composition. I really only chose it so I could work in the shade of the rockstack behind me, which also came in handy to hop on and cling to once or twice as waves washed up across the narrow berm between the rock and the water’s edge. Never got my boots wet, but the rising tide did force a higher ground relocation at one point.

On another note, have I ever told you guys about my giant van? I love it, room for everything, art junk, surfboards, wives, children, you name it. It’s great. The drawback of having so much room is that it gets full of all sorts of things that occasionally rattle loose from their moorings on the bumpy road home and cause all sorts of ruckus and mayhem back there. On this day it was a heavy tripod palette tray that took flight and punched a L shaped gash into the sky on the right side of this painting. It’s been patched and repaired now but if you look close it’s there to see. Just glad it was a clean tear instead of a long smearing scrape through the wet paint. That could have been unsalvageable, as it is I reckon someone will still dig it, even if it’s just me.


Old Haunt

11/12/2015

Painted this one two days ago. Used to spend a lot of time up on this bluff and out in the shifting sloppy beach break out front. Haven’t painted up here in about 8 years. Shortly after setting up another painter walked up and cut right to it, “where you from?” I was laughing inside, usually only hear that kind of introduction in the water in these parts, didn’t know it extended to land based art culture as well. I knew the guy, though, great artist and we’re connected on these here social medias, so once he figured out who I was he smiled and warmed up. Almost wish I’d bluffed him to see how deep the art localism gets up here. Bluff top turf brawl, my easel tossed off the cliff, busted glasses, all that. He was maybe a bit older but he’d have rung my clock I reckon. Good times anyway. I should come out here more often I guess.


Groupthink

11/06/2015

The result of the Live Art collaboration with Spencer Reynolds @spencerreynoldsartist last night. We’re still friends. But it was a close call for a minute there.


November Rhythms

11/02/2015

Plein air from up the coast yesterday. Well basically plein air. I was on location and working fast to get the feeling of the place and time, but I wasn’t technically outdoors. I cheated and painted this one from the back of the van, nice to be out of the wind- it was howling out there.


Fleeting Glimpse

10/10/2015

Painted live at Redwood Curtain brewery during a live music set from Likwefi. No plan, just paint and let the music guide the pace. Twice during the show I thought I saw a bird and tried to define it, but the more I developed it, the worse it looked as it wasn’t a planned drawing of a bird, just some random forms that hinted at a bird, like seeing shapes in clouds. Ended up resolving the piece by bringing it back to pure abstraction during the closing songs. Cracks me up thinking of folks watching me paint at these things and thinking that I know what I’m doing. If they could only step inside my head for a moment or two they’d wonder how I even left my house and made it to the show. Pure scatterwonky. And yet for all that, I still somehow end up with a painting I kinda dig. Not a bad deal.


Up the Coast

09/22/2015

They took one last look at the river
And longed for another time
Saddened by the parade of motorhomes and meth
Stretching from the ends of the earth to right here and right now
They refused to join the neon funeral procession
They took their stand
And to this day they remain
Still
And beautiful
And made of solid gold


Passing Through VI

09/18/2015

Painted Live at Oysters and Ale benefit for Humboldt Made a few weeks ago. These live pieces are a fun outlet for me, a welcome change of pace from drawn out studio work or weather/light/location dependent plein air work. I never really know where a piece is going to go and that’s at least half the fun.


Free Range #33: Last Rites

08/14/2015

Technically, this would be the 33rd piece in the Free Range series. Odometer maybe at 1525 miles or so. Painted it on location in La Jolla at the VIP party for UCSD’s Legends of Surfing Invitational that benefits Moores Cancer Center. This little one raised $1200 to fight cancer that night. Shortly after that I was keeled over in pain and ended up in the ER at Scripps hospital. They couldn’t figure it out and sent me on my way where the stabbing pain came and went for the next 2 weeks. Tests, appointments, all that. Still no answers but feeling better. Reckon 3 weeks of van life and brutal work pace had me neglecting proper nutrition and hydration and I paid the price this time. Anyway, all that is to say I’m not dead yet, and even though this is the last painting I’ve done as of this moment, there will be more. Just a reminder we never know what tomorrow brings. Life is short. Love people. Now.
I’m beyond stoked to have been part of such an amazing event and grateful to all that work so hard to make it happen each year. I hope to be back, and in better condition to howl at the moon and fight cancer like a pirate with you all next year. Heroes.


Free Range #32: End of the Line

08/10/2015

Odometer: 1499.6 miles

A common theme when exploring an unfamiliar area is to drive to the end of the road, then get out and walk to the end of the trail until you can’t pass any further. Doesn’t matter if it’s a remote location or just a curious corner of your own local neighborhood, it happens time and time again. This was a familiar stretch, but I hadn’t gone this far before on these bluffs. In hindsight it’s fitting that this was the end of the trail, as my plein air tour would be cut short in the following days due to illness, the hard toll of road life perhaps catching up at last. I reckon I’ll be fine and the rumors of my demise are greatly exaggerated but huge thanks to everyone that stepped up and helped me out when I was feeling pretty awful. Apologies to those who asked for paintings further south, they won’t be coming on this trip. As it turned out this was much closer to the end of the line than I thought it would be at the time.


Free Range #31: Summer Cooker

08/09/2015

Odometer: 1491.6 miles

Not much to say here. It was really hot this day, not like Texas-in-Summer heat or anything near it, but still much hotter than usual for these parts.

I’m not used to sweating so much near the beach. It’s all well and good if you’ve got your feet in the water, it’s another story when perched tantalizingly close on the bluff for 2 hours in the midday heat.

A beautiful big rainbow beetle kept landing on my easel telling me I should wrap it up and get in the ocean. I replied in beads of saltwater dripping out from under the brim of my hat. He seemed to appreciate this biological pun, buzzing out a little laugh of his wings, but he and I both knew I didn’t belong up there.

-Entry on August 9, 2015

I was hospitalized last night. Possibly dehydration.

-Entry on August 10, 2015


Free Range #29: This Too Shall Pass

08/07/2015

Odometer: 1361.2 miles

Painted this after driving through the largest freeways of this trip on a hot humid day, suffering a random nosebleed in the fast lane, and arriving to this spot covered in a sweaty layer of cloudfunk. Figured I’d make the most of it as since I was here. This place has history with me. When I really got into landscapes and plein air art around 15 years ago, I was briefly living in long beach and this was the closest place to come and hike and submerse one’s self in nature and atmosphere and not see cars, roads, or houses for miles. And its also very close to the beach where I proposed to my wife a little over 15 years ago as well. We celebrated our 15th anniversary together up the coast a few days ago, so was really wanting to paint one around here even though I wasn’t too inspired when setting up. Laid out a few lines and was greeted by the heaviest rain I’ve seen on this trip. Just about called it quits, but figured this too would pass, and sure enough it did. Glad I didn’t give up earlier.


Free Range #28: For Those Who Have Gone Before Us

08/06/2015

Odometer: 1296.1 miles

There’s a lot of history here. Native history, Spanish colonial history, surfing history, and countless other threads entwine around this focal point of the coast. As I painted this one I chatted with a local who a long time friend of a fellow coastal artist who passed away not too long ago. Hearing his stories and backstories to those stories really brought home the reality to me that this life is too short not to live fully. He lived a much different life than I, but born to another time and place it could have been me that was gone and him just now hearing tales of my days here. Hug the ones you love.