Spicy

i like peppers, i like how they taste, i like how they make other things taste, i like how they look. i prefer the twisty ones the most. i've noticed that many stores seem to prefer peppers that look like storybook peppers...uniform and uniformly "pepper-like". i think that i prefer the "Mapplethorpepper"...suggestive and sensually twisted...visually spicy!

what i did with three of them one afternoon...
"3 peppers" original painting, acrylic on canvas 8"x10" study on stretched cotton canvas ($125)

Where Does It Come From?

Inspiration...great stuff...but where does it come from? does everyone get it? why do some people seem to get large doses of it, while others seem to languish? why does it seem to dry up sometimes?

whatever it is, i think it's a good thing.sometimes i muse that it's a slippery item to claim as one's own. maybe we can claim that we had the good sense to act on it, but it hardly seems that we generate it at whim (which would be the only way that we could lay claim to owning it). Another thought to shake around in those quiet times.

i always wanted to try this...i'm not sure if i would want this kind of muse around all the time...rumor has it that they have large and omnivorous appetites.

"The Source" photography, various 3d applications, and Photoshop

Fated?

What is Fate, is anything "fated", do we make out own Fate, are we helpless before fate, in fate we trust? if there is such a thing, from what does it emanate?...some things to ponder over a reassuring glass of something stronger than ginger ale.

One of my latest paintings "fortuna ex machina"...41.5x33", acrylic on canvas.

Bird Brained

birds on the brain...that must be the reason. i was doing some photo research on pelicans for a future painting so i found myself, camera in hand, stumbling around the rocks at the sea shore. it was a very nice day and the birds were most accommodating (lazy?) so i got some nice pics and even better inspiration. i wish i had wings...

for the flighty...."Pair On a Popular Perch" and "Simple Requirements"

Follies

i decided to paint...just paint. i find that if i spend time deciding whether my impulse to paint any particular idea is worth spending the time on...i don't. the result of that little exercise is no painting. so, in the interest of producing some paintings, i'm painting ANY ideas that seem interesting. this particular one is not the latest, but it is in the recent roster. i also decided to stock them up a bit instead of releasing them every time i complete one. more on this topic later, but for now...

"Birds Before the Storm" (acrylic on canvas, 15"x30", SOLD)

The Wrong Thing

i really have taken a liking to the sound of the word "bling". it's a wonderfully descriptive utterance for something that has a momentary sparkle and flash...the passing twinkle in an eye used in an over-the-top visual comedy...so sad that we grab onto that so often as the first thing...and spend an inordinate amount of energy of all sorts trying to possess...nothing...or, arguably less satisfying, the wrong thing.

such an incredible lack of discernment..or is it simply just laziness, like looking at nothing in particular and past everything and just grabbing the first "bling" we see?

it makes me very uncomfortable to ponder this one..."calming vibrations"

Facing Faces

i usually take the stand that there are "absolutes", but as i get more experience in life i have to admit that there seems to be no possible way to ascertain what they (or it) might be.

every single object or event looks different, and may have different significance, depending on the person observing it or the location of the observation point...that would seem to include physical location, mental state, life experience, education, and whatever else we could imagine that would make each observer/location combination unique. it sometimes seems to me that if we could just get all the views, we'd know what something absolutely is...or would we?

i'm fascinated by this concept, and it's easy enough to play around with it on a small scale while photographing the same thing from different perspectives...the more i play with it, the more i'm convinced that there's just no telling...and so i go on exploring and observing.

two of the many faces of one of my favorite buildings, the templeton granary..."a matter of scale" and "boxes and boxes".