New Day, New Year, New Life

I welcome the New Year with open arms.
Packing is foremost, clearing out a lot of old portfolio work from Entertainment Art Direction work. That! Feels very good :).

It's funny i have never had one movie poster i designed displayed any where in my house, even the award winning ones…. It has always been the enjoyment of the puzzle of how to get someone interested in watching the film and i was fortunate, I had good instincts and had a few successes with that, plus i think my artistic training and skills added to what i bring to the table in that industry.

Not much to say right now, more words will come later ~then the canvas will take my words away for a while. I will be filled with color and oils and brush strokes and light.


•~•

It is funny, now that i am a bit more mature i want to discuss art and I do have things to say.

When i was younger and first selling my work and having openings thrown by people and for me and i was asked what was my intent behind a still life of apples? Or the portrait the gay cowboy ~i was so appalled by the audacity for the need of explanation~ to me it was self evident. I was painting the beauty around me, trying to wake up others to it as well. Giving a window in wall where only TV was focused on before, or a shiny new car as the prized possession.

I often would refuse to go to my unveilings and private parties thrown in my honor. It seemed absurd to me. It was the simple thing of ~ i paint, you commission or purchase and you get from my painting what you will.

I see now though i was such a rebel in my own unique way, painting in the style of old masters at the mere age of 17 when it was fashionable to put vomit on a canvas and call it art. Or to enamel a toilet red and say it was worth 20,000 dollars because of the “concept” and yet they could not draw a stick figure.

THIS is why i stepped away when my paintings were selling very well top private collectors and then one of them ~ an art director, illegally it turns out~ without my permission put it in a movie that made my very selective collectors upset to see their artist, their similar pieces, in a comedy of an actor whose reputation was not that high at the time...

Also when a painter began to copy my work almost verbatim to the point friends were calling me congratulating me on my cover in a prominent newspaper calendar section when it wasn’t mine. And i have been painting the subject matter and style for years before then and the other straw~i had some of my prized private collection stolen from my studio on Abbot Kinney, in Venice, California. I think the combination at the time.. was enough to push me away from the canvas to in front of a computer.. more days than not....

I took a break. Did what i thought was easier money and helped contribute to the success of some huge films, other peoples careers and continued to be the simple artist inside. I was painting every day ~not with oil and canvas and brush as i had been doing everyday of my life the previous 15 years.

So now, a new year begins. A new life. One of truer realities. New complex and yet simpler avenues to getting my work out. New things to learn, new people to connect with, new life and experiences, a new city, a new home, though I have had it ~I never lived there… a new way to make a living by I haven’t done solely~in 15 years…and most importantly~

A new engagement with my deepest love~ painting :)