This body of work started in the Covid Lockdown of 2020. Trapped at home for days on end, my sweet escape was to go to Towson University, where I taught classes. I’d go to the drawing room and draw and paint from the still life closet. The college was like a ghost town, and the art building was virtually deserted. I held an open studio, though I rarely saw more than one or two students.  The series likely started with me doing class demos but morphed into something much more expansive. I began to pull out and assemble my favorite mannequins, and spend time thinking about these mysterious, human-like objects we use to approximate the human form. They became my strange new company. The older models wear the many scars of being hastily moved from one room to another- cracks, bruises, and discoloration decorate their limbless bodies. Both matched and miss-matched arms and legs awkwardly attach to these plastic, helpless torsos. Unseeing eyes, some remarkably penetrating, seem to hold secrets no one will ever know. Mouths that will never speak, noses that will never smell- these pitiable plastic forms allowed my imagination to take flight. Once the menagerie of props- deer antlers, bricks and bottles, human skulls, fake fruit and plants, and colorful drapery are introduced, the mysterious narrative only deepens.  
 

This is an ongoing series of watercolor portraits describing the life and spaces of the "creative class."
It is important that I understand and explore my sitter's personal symbolism, and include it, as much as possible, in the narrative. So far the process of seeing and developing each person's symbolic personae, and how the two sitters engage with each other and me, has been very interesting!
As an artist, it's no surprise that most of my friends and sitters are also artists, of one form or another. In some cases, I have worked to incorporate some of what they do/ make into their painting. In others I focus more on trying to find symbols that most accurately capture their beliefs and aesthetic ideas. 

Portrait Commissions available.

unframed $1,400

framed $1,650

This group of paintings started in Nagasaki, Japan. When my wife and I go to visit her family, I often draw in my sketchbook. Over time I have amassed several sketchbooks full of ideas.  The imagery is from parks, hospitals, temples, cathedrals, parking lots, the wharf, graveyards, shrines, museums, and other places I have visited while in this fascinating city.
I simply sit and draw what I see, for a limited time, then move to what comes next. I try and keep the sketches moving at the same speed as my perception and experience of the area.  This process helps me to experience what this city and the people here are all about. The drawings are not completely observational, as some of my other work is- but are observations combined with interpretation and imagination. While I certainly lean toward specific symbolic or iconographical material as anchors in these paintings, I take joy in incorporating aspects of the everyday as well. An example would be drawing the bust of Mary from an historic cathedral, or a statue of the Buddha, alongside of a couple of common pigeons or a woman walking her dog. In painting as in life, these things all work together to make the full human experience. 

From the sketchbooks, I form the paintings you see here. I have re- drawn them much larger, on canvas, and painted them. I work fairly quickly and instinctively with the paint. The goal is to keep the immediacy and spontenaiety of the sketches, while opening and deepening their meaning through color, texture, and value. 


 

The On the Stoop Series, made with ink wash and pen, started as a tongue in cheek exploration
of stoop culture in Baltimore. City folks of all stripes enjoy sitting out on their front steps and
watching the world go by. As the series developed, I started seeing interesting political and social
overtones evolve in the work. Some of this is about my relationship to the city, and some delves
into our specific social issues, both in the local and the international arena. I hope that a darkly
comical feeling is evoked, with references to the satirical work of the English artist, William
Hogarth among many others in the satirical, illustrative tradition. 
I've made and published a book of the collected works along with a brief barrative to carry the viewer
deeper into the drawings. It's called On the Stoop; A new Exploration of City Living.
Attached is a link to the book. https://www.blurb.com/b/10284784-on-the-stoop