Questions and Answers on the Creative Process Provided by the Artist

How do you start a given work?

As my paintings are a reflection, a meditation on my life’s physical, psychological, and spiritual experiences, there are various phases of creating a work that I experience. There is the initial stage, facing the blank canvas, which is a threatening and a risk-taking ordeal. To get over this anxiety, I just plunge in with a strong emotion dictated by the recent events in my life, and the painting begins to define itself. Once started, painting, for me, resembles a trance-like state, which is occasionally interspersed with a brief frank assessment as to what is happening on the canvas. Mistakes do occur, but some artists have created successes out of mistakes, so I try to let my mistakes have a chance to speak for themselves before/if I decide to put them aside. For example, I read in ARTnews that Robert Rauschenberg won the grand prize at the 1963 Ljubljana print biennial in the former Yugoslavia for his work “Accident”, which was pulled from a broken stone with a diagonal crack. The article stated: “Sometimes an unintentional goof results in surpassingly good art. Innovations in the work of Nam June Paik, Jackie Winsor, and Man Ray originated in mishaps transformed into new techniques and styles.” Several of my paintings are “mistakes” that I’ve “worked”.

What are your working methods/techniques?

When I use a large canvas, I often work on the floor for greater freedom of movement and expression.  I use brushes, palette knives, and paper or cloth for special effects. Some of my artwork involves constant movement, and “painting out” areas around and within an existing form to provide the illusion of negative space.  For example, see my painting Huis Clos (No Exit) under Abstract Paintings.

In addition, I like to add non-painterly objects, such as nails, screws, wire, canvas, paper which provide a tactile effect, giving a three-dimensional connection between the viewer and the painting.  For example, see my painting “Earth Awakening”, oil on wood, under Abstract Paintings. I like to use found objects that are immediately available to me because I often feel they are presented to me for use in a painting.  For example, see my paintings:  Shell Inspiration I and Shell Inspiration II under Abstract Paintings.

The time I put in a painting varies depending on the mood that I am in.  Sometimes I work best in great spurts of energy and I can produce a painting (36”x36”) in a month.  I try to create  successive completions, so I can experience satisfaction with each small completion. The final challenge is the process of showing my work. Anxiety sets in during the preparation for the show, which can be debilitating because I am not free to paint without the imagined thoughts of what people will say and think. The slightest disapproval from others or myself, increases this anxiety to a heart-retching level. Showing is a perilous business for an artist.

What unique qualities do the materials you use have and how did they affect the outcome of the finished work?

I like textures of varying weights, and layers of color, such as strips of painted canvas.  For example, in my painting “Fragments of Memory”, I used various pieces of painted canvas that pierced the two-dimensional canvas space, and made it three dimensional. These overlapping canvas fragments, some similar in length and width, and others different sizes, evoked various fragments of memory of my life. I also use paint that flows freely juxtaposed with firmly fixed paint.  For example, see my painting, Reason and Emotion under Abstract Paintings, where the paint is opaque and firmly fixed in some places and in other places translucent and flowing.

How did you come up with the theme, connections for your show?

The theme was always present in my paintings – I just labeled it after meditating and contemplating what the paintings were telling me, and reviewing my life’s experiences.

What have you learned about art in general or about yourself as an artist creating it?

Painting is both pleasure and pain, and I cannot know one without the other – they are both inexplicably connected.