Artist Statement

As a boy, I discovered my identity through making things. There is a special magic in seeing and making things for the first time. It is precious to stay this way, because it is the doorway to originality. It is almost impossible not to be corrupted by knowledge and success and to retain one’s identity. For me, painting is the highest form of making and becoming a real person. My paintings today come from this original seeing and making.

In 1965, while in college, I discovered Acrylics and began using them. I had been trained in oils and continued painting in oils until I graduated from college. All the while, I was still experimenting with acrylics. Hardly anyone used them, as they had only been available for use less than ten years. My professors could not truly advise me. I had to teach myself. With the slow drying of oils, blending and modeling the paint were the basic skills to master. Although I was able to demonstrate this ability, I discovered that the acrylic paint had a much broader range. I could do more things with it because it dried very fast. Other students preferred the familiarity of oil paint.

While oils are an opaque oil based medium, acrylics are translucent and water based. I discovered that the acrylic was still translucent, no matter how dense the paint was applied. This means you can still see through it - layer after layer of color. Instead of blending and modeling as with oils, I realized that glazing was the key to acrylic as well as its greatest strength. It would have been possible to attempt this technique with oils but the drying time is longer and varnish is used for glazing. The use of varnish would lead to cracking in time. Acrylic was more practical, flexible and immediate; it would not crack.

Modeling and blending with acrylic merely mimicked oil painting. I wanted this acrylic paint to produce an entirely different way of making a painting. I began experimenting with mixed color glazes and glazed over shapes that were more opaque. The colors, shapes and glazes took on a life of their own and generated new ways of conveying form and spirit. I was instructed by what was happening before me.

Eventually, the paintings developed a subtle luminosity. To enhance this, a different type of gesso was necessary. I was taught that the chalky type of gesso that most artists use was best. The colors had to “sink in” to this gesso. Why is this so, I asked myself. With acrylic, it only tended to dull the color, keeping it from displaying its own purity. Instead, I formulated my own gesso that is luminous and extremely white. The color floats yet anchors to it. This luminous gesso, underneath, yields an inner light to the glazes above. Over time, with this technique, it became possible to produce colors and color tones that could not be mixed. It was magic!

It is not my intention to produce bright colors or colorful paintings. The paintings are made from the inside out, rather than the outside in. Because of this, you see first hand the energy, spirit and inner light that exists in the world. The child in us recognizes this and is refreshed by it. If you are like-minded, you will realize it is not only the world that we see but also the source.

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