Cones #2 (while hearing Huck

Maybe I should rename this piece ‘Release.’

It’s all about giving up control, isn’t it? I mean, my whole life has been about controlling everything in my environment—music, people, relationships, career, and on and on. The more things I tried to be in control of the more my misery redoubled it’s stranglehold on me. Perhaps this is the pathway out of my terror and the loosening of my gut. It seems to be working already… some kind of relaxation is coming over me and burden becoming lighter. I’ll have to test this hypothesis.

Cones #1 | 10 x 8 inches | Prismacolor on paper 2009

This is a safety cone. It seemed to me out of place in the middle of a farm field. Harbinger of coming storm activity. Normally associated with road construction of urban areas, I appreciate the contrast of the two settings of agriculture and commerce. I think there may be more cones to come.

The Lovers | 10 x 8 inches | graphite on paper 2009

Meeting alone on the prairie
Slowly

Wait, Wait, Wait (just for a little while) | 8 x 10 inches | graphite on paper 2009

It has nothing to do with a Mexican standoff
Boleros or impeded justice
Flanks of horses bridled from full acceleration

Nothing to do with dry, relentless heat
or wandering through a ghost town
in search of a drink of warm whisky

No, not even a well in the town square
with only damp dirt at the bottom
mocking swollen tongue

What then?
Desert of spirit
To the path below
To the path below

Jack of All Trades | 8 x 10 inches | graphite on paper 2009

Each morning
I get out of bed
to take a short shower
before heading out
to the lake

A few minutes of prayer
and some study

It’s usually too dark to read
but gradually light reveals letters
and thoughts and ideas
refresh my mind

Since it is winter and there are people ice fishing
I get to observe some things
like trailers unloading ATVs and sleds

There was a very warm thaw this year
in February
So warm it was that all the fish houses
were pulled off the lake

They all waited together
like geese in the parking lot
For the cold to come back

I found them really intriguing all squatting together
and so shot a few photos, and drew

My paintings are personal in so many ways. On multiple levels, from the initial selection of the subject all the way to the finished work and the surface on which it is presented, I am communicating a perspective and emotion.

Intertwined within my paintings of land and plants is my opposing desires for freedom and security, intellectual curiosity and by pure emotion, and repulsion and attraction to rural life.

Although my formal choices are somewhat traditional, expression comes in what to leave in and take out of a painting. Composition is also a expression of choice—the way the space is designed with positive space, negative space, and perspective.

Color, too, comes from the deep inside me, communicating my favorite times of day or year. The initial drawing is an important in the paintings and is retained in the finished work. And finally, the medium itself has a tactile quality that is very satisfying—mixing wet into wet to achieve controlled disorder.

my imagery springs from my life
living among these places, and countless others witnessed
and reflects all of my emotions gained while there

emotions are given voice in metaphor
tucked away in hiding among the prairie plants
or in broad daylight along the plains and fields

my desire is escape and hiding, mysterious and new
either from or to myself, I can never be sure

but the pressure to be away and never come back
is relentless and pure, flying away or burrowing under

light and color find their voices

at this point the picture becomes a relationship
with the 2D surface and the materials to complete
my delusion of final control and fulfillment of fantasy

in real life I live, all thorny and uncontrollable
painting is my demon and I attempt to slay
the medium, the technology, the color, the oil
subduing it into something soft and beautiful
like God meant it to be

some people reach for a morning cigarette
and steaming cup
satisfied for a couple of hours

painting is my sip and drag
too long away means discomfort
and finally pain

out of life’s struggles
gems are created
heated in the furnaces of suffering
experiences of peace and joy mixed
with past pain and sorrow
to create wisdom that understands

one step, and then the other
in search of the ultimate beauty
found just over there, or under
ultimately, thankfully, finally
above