Many works below originated from my Black White Red Series. Picasso had a blue period, this was mine. I painted in black and white, a nod to Ansel Adams, but with a touch of red since you can’t add color to a traditional B&W photo. Red signifying, stop, danger, romance or some other pop of rumination in each painting.
You may also notice a thread of environmental influence impressed upon me while living in Seattle during the hemp movement of the 90’s. Climate awareness, such as reusing demo materials in renovations or creating sculptures from items saved over decades, is part of my pursuit. It may seem like a novel approach nowadays but it didn’t feel that way 30+ years ago. Finally, I’ve complimented my work with thousands of automobile photographs, held bedrock on automotive restoration, plus execute home and commercial design and renovation as a licensed contractor.
With a sprig of rosemary.
Acrylic on canvas
2022
This bottle, at the time of painting, was the world record holder for most expensive bottle of wine to sell at auction, $558,000. Two bottles of only 600 produced by Domaine de la Romanée-Conti (DRC) in 1945 were part of a Sotheby’s sale in New York in 2018.
Acrylic on canvas
2020
Acrylic on canvas
1998
When living in Laguna Beach in the late 90s, we were inundated with rain from El Niño. Laguna Canyon HWY 133 was closed for almost a week before and after mud slides. All the signs from nature were there.
Don’t build in slide prone areas.
Don’t push development towards the shoreline.
The rains and ocean are relentless.
“Vs. Nature” paints the picture of our incessant drive to compete against nature with a simple red lit buoy warning us: go back, you will eventually lose.
Black White Red Series
Acrylic on canvas
1997
To get away from it all.
Acrylic on canvas
2013
The story of a man lying with a woman as the winds of change blow through. The red is a small rose at the door of the barn holding back the inevitable as other men are lined up waiting on the hillside.
Black White Red Series
Acrylic on canvas
1999
Traveling through time, we pick open windows that become the building blocks of life to reach new opportunities.
Acrylic on canvas
2001
When I first moved to Seattle in 1996 to join The Fremont Hemp Co., of which I was a partner, my friends picked me up from the airport and took me straight to Molly’s house for dinner. She was an incredible pianist. After a five course meal, we sat in her living room while she played Mozart, Beethoven and others. The picture window was reminiscent of the life I left behind, an advertising job at Jeep where my 26th floor window office looked out over the Southeast Michigan skyline. Fall was spectacular.
Acrylic on canvas
1996
The Flower Series began with this painting. My path through life looking for a partner. As I traveled through life, and met different women represented as the flowers, I realized she may have been closed off, too square, overly complicated… maybe I read her like an open book or there were fireworks but nothing more. I was looking for more than was in front of me. The red one not on the path I had yet to meet.
Black White Red Series
Acrylic on canvas
1996
The path came from another painting of mine called “Flowers”. It’s a tale of traveling through life looking at all the opportunities around us. This time, those opportunities explode for attention as we continue walking, searching, ignoring looking for something more intriguing over the horizon.
Black White Red Series
Acrylic on canvas
1996
Acrylic on canvas
1996
On the surface sure, they are candles. But they are laid out to remind of the conversation and the woman I was sitting across from that evening. We were sitting on the floor, she had her legs to the side as we got to know each other. The larger candle depicts the passion or flame between us.
Acrylic on canvas
1998
The story of greedy corporations slowly bleeding the environment. Like ships passing in the night, we hardly notice. If and when we do, changing their course is arduous with more corporations in the wings to take its place.
Black White Red Series
Acrylic on canvas
1997
Acrylic on canvas
2012
Acrylic on canvas
1999
The draw of fossil fuels from the ground that can’t compete with the renewable energy of the sun.
Acrylic on canvas
1996
Have you ever had a dream when you fall from the sky, building or cliff towards a certain death only to wake up in a gasp? This was my painting of such. For months, maybe years, I had a dream of falling off of a cliff towards the jagged rocks and surf of the ocean below. They say if you die in your dream, well, that’s it. I wanted to test that theory.
The falling dream didn’t come around often but when it did, I tried to stay asleep. Countless times I woke up except for one night. Hurling towards a certain death, the rush of wind past my head, crash and spray of water below, I held on tight to my belief that hitting those rocks would be catastrophic. The closer I came, I knew I wasn’t waking up this time, this was it. Swoop! Back up to the sky, looking up at a hole in the atmosphere that I dropped out of, looking back down towards the cliff and ocean far below. I headed in for another oceanic plunge only to reset and fall from the sky again. I was in a loop. No death. Just a falling loop. Well, try painting that!
Underneath the sail was my attempt at the rocky shoreline as I fell from above. Ultimately, the painting of sun, moon and distant shoreline is still the dream worth sharing.
Acrylic on canvas
1994
See my studios from the first one-bedroom house in Portland, Oregon where it all began.