A Commission with a Personal Twist (and Fins)

As a teenager, I did countless illustrations of classic cars. Sharpies, cheap markers, and colorful gel pens were my media of choice, and even my school notebooks and assignment books were not safe from finned cars and retro hot rod detailing. While my environmentalist tendencies leave me with concerns over how the American love of the automobile is shaping our landscapes and health, my fascination for outlandishly stylish and shiny classic cars, chrome, hot rods, and high-performance engines has never quite disappeared. This having been said, when my cousin in Upstate New York mentioned that he still had my Cubism-inspired marker drawing of his '55 Chevy on his wall and wanted another slightly abstract work depicting a '59 Cadillac and some of his favorite guitars (which I ended up working into the background shapes), I was quite enthusiastic. Of course, I have not drawn with markers for years, so I chose acrylics instead. . . and even though I used to draw finned cars all the time, I have never actually painted one before now.

My main goals for the painting were that it include my cousin's love of great cars and music, that it make reference to the style of the wildly-colored marker drawings I made as a teen, and that the car look solid and fairly well-delineated. . . after all, no matter how much I enjoy experimenting with transparent overlays of paint, a '59 Cadillac is a very concrete thing. After a few more days of curing and a quick trip through the mail, I am fairly sure that The Sound of Fins [above] will look rather interesting on my cousin's wall, near the "Cubist '55" I drew years ago. . .

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Valentines in June

As it turns out, the last name of our beautiful model at June's figure drawing session at Lowe Mill is actually Valentine. With her striking features, long, wild hair, and contemplative poses, sketching on a stormy Sunday afternoon was rather like a dream. Moreover, while I have always been fairly confident in my ability to draw, my drawings really do seem to have evolved over the past six months. (And, of course, analyzing the progression never ceases to strike me as fascinating!)

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Meet and Greet at Sam and Greg's, June 24th

Friday night's reception began in a fairly mellow manner at Sam and Greg's, but as sunset approached, the crowds began to spill in. Pleasantly enough for me, many among these crowds were friends and family who had come to view my selection of 15 paintings and share a pizza (or two) with me. . . over the week, I have also gotten to know some of the staff members at Sam and Greg's a bit more, and they have been wonderfully friendly and quick to shower the paintings with compliments. Thanks so very much, all! Friday night was simply lovely. (If you were unable to attend the reception but would still like to see the show, it will be on display until August 8th.)

[The group begins to gather. . .]

[With my friends Sam and Varner.]

[With two of my high school friends, Kristen and Alexa.]

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Now on Display at Sam and Greg's, Downtown Huntsville

My walls are a bit bare on this stormy night, but the empty spaces give me great joy, as the paintings that once hung there are currently on display at the Gallery at Sam and Greg's. Located directly on the square in downtown Huntsville, Sam and Greg's has been one of my favorite haunts for quite some time-- after all, not only do they serve wonderful coffee, gelato, and more, but the Huntsville Arts Council hangs a new high-profile exhibit on the walls every 4-8 weeks.


From now until August 8th, the gallery will be featuring 15 of my paintings, including Life in the 60's, The Art of Conversation, Entr'acte, At the Computer, and others (some of which, such as my portrait of my grandfather, are being displayed for the first time).


The reception for this exhibit will be held this Friday, June 24th, from 5-7pm; all are welcome to meet me in person, ask questions, and enjoy an evening of fine art and fine refreshments!

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Life as an Artist: Activities and Current Directions

Between my work as a piano teacher and language tutor, recent festivals in the past few weeks, and an up-coming one-woman show in downtown Huntsville, I have been traveling all around my area lately. My myriad paintings and set-up materials have been organized based on what needs to go where and when. Some may ask whether I am not too busy to be thinking of new art, but I do not feel that way. I get fairly sleepy by the end of the day, naturally, but I feel energized, enthusiastic. Moreover, I find myself doing multiple sketches per day, sometimes even doing in-depth studies of sketches or illustrations I find in books, magazines, or on the internet (I remain fond of vintage pin-up art, particularly the work of Alberto Vargas and Gil Elvgren, as well as Art Nouveau images by Alphonse Mucha, whose graceful pencil line is a wonder of the world to me). Suddenly, I want to make paintings that require me to do much more research and preliminary work than I am used to doing before putting brush to canvas. . . and I want to finally do another series of works meant to be shown together. (I have not done a conscious "series" since the paintings of Birds that I did for my first show in 2007). My ideas have already reached the "preparation stages", in fact.

Even so, I do not want to go much further until I have finished the three paintings I have been working on simultaneously these days. The smallest one (8X10), Charleston Ruffles [above] I finished yesterday. The other two, of course, are much larger and have taken their time drying in the humid Alabama summertime, but they too shall soon be completed and varnished.

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Simple Subject, Complex Connotations

Many of the people I know spend several hours per day at the computer, perhaps far more time than they would prefer, so as unexciting as a person seated at a computer may seem, it is a natural subject for a slice-of-life painting. Taken directly from one of my #Draw365 sketches [above], a painting of a young man at a computer might have been any number of things ("dull" comes to mind first, followed by "boring"). However, it was the fact that my sketch somehow reminded me of Picasso's Old Guitarist that led me to make a painting out of it.

I often think quite a bit about the artists of the past and what it might have been like for some of them to meet and collaborate, however unlikely. At the Computer [below] combines my suspicion that a Picasso of the 21st Century would have certainly included a depressed "gamer" in his Blue Period work with a subtle dose of Van Gogh's Starry Night (given the array of dazzling colors that screens project on walls and faces and the fact that many chronic computer-users are also chronic night owls). While I rather doubt that Picasso and Van Gogh would have gotten along well enough to agree to a full collaboration, I would have certainly enjoyed hearing an artistic dialogue between the two. . .

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June Interview

This month on the Huntsville Art Blog, I had the great pleasure of talking to Ellen Pryor, the communications director for the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville. In the interview, she talks about her love of the arts, Nashville's art scene, careers in the arts, and the many programs and exhibits that the Frist has to offer.

To read the feature in full, click here.

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