Still Lifes - Multi-Themes

For this page of my art website

I chose to show the variety of subjects that I've painted, drawn, or printed over the years. Unlike all my other still lifes these four still lifes have a definite unique quality or mind of their own: their intriguing images reflect this.

A Tribute to Shakespeare and Ashes 2001 oil 36 x 30 inches $500

Beach Still Life 2012 oil pastel on prussian blue paper 16 x 20 inches $300

Still Life 1995 lithograph on printpaper 16 x 13 inches $300

When I first thought of painting this still life it was literally an indirect literary idea.

I was sitting in a modern, comfortablely-cushioned rocking chair in the living room of my Washingtonian birth house to the side of this still life's table but the comfort didn't completely last. While reading a book about World War II and Winston Churchhill, I turned in the chair, twisted it to the right and looked at the "Shakespeare Lamp," thinking about the Bard of literature: What a great and inspirational still life this table's images would make! So to make this super still life into into the ultimate sight for my viewer; I took the silver cup sitting parallel on top of the table, put it upright leaning against the wheat's golden vase behind it after filling it with ashes from our living room's fireplace, to the table's left, then took the golden letteropener with Shakespeare's bust at it's top from the table and placed it on the silver mug to the right of the two above mentioned items. Finally I brought the whole still life down to my basement studio below and painted the scene set up next to my easel there. The white curtain in my studio I made nuanced in grays for the background and with the introspective and serious Shakespeare of the lamp looking down towards the silver cup of ashes and that letteropener pointing to it too, I visually came up with an image for the viewer to ponder profoundly one of Shakespeare's famous lines via Hamlet: "What a piece of work is man! The beauty of the world The paragon of animals. And yet to me, what is this quintessance of dust(5th and finest element)? Man delights not me. No, nor woman either, though by your smiling you seem to say so." Two final notes: the drooping ivy plant from the fireplace in the upper left and the poinsettia in the bottom right I made sure to include intentionally to add a little lovely plant life for real relief to an otherwise bleak Shakesperian Tragedy of a still life. Also the yellow, white, and golden striped tablecloth which the sad still life stands on also adds a lighter touch to the heavy, cold, cloudy content of this painted canvas.

After having found these various sea items( 3 seaweeds) and 2 feathers from a bird sitting on a Cape Cod beach, I took them to a house I'd stayed at that summer and drew them on a piece of prussian-blue paper. What I did for the viewer was to have them imagine these sea and flying creature items sitting on top of either a night deep seascape or on the beach with dark night sky reflected on the beach sand beautifully but flatly.

Studio Still Life(after Diebenkorn)(won Best in Show Award at The Art League Gallery in Alexandria, VA) 2005 acrylic 26 x 28 inches $350

Even though this still Iife became the only still life or any painting I ever won a "Best in Show" Award for in any juried gallery art show yet as an artist, I was surprised it actually did! Why? Because of all the paintings or drawing I ever won awards for in my art career, it's the least perfect. In other words, if the viewer saw the painting close-up, there are globs of paint protruding in some areas and some of the gray strips in the background are crooked, slanted, out of place. And yet it says all it has too about me as a professional artist in my studio: the miter box, hammer, and saw represent my in-studio working habits, the framing I mostly do myself, cutting lattice strip wood with that box sawing it with that saw. The scissors do the cutting mostly for the hanging wire behind my paintings. Finally this painting's image was directly inspired/influenced by a Diebenkorn I once saw in a book I got about him as a birthday present, an artist my first art dealer in Washington, DC recommended I look at, think about as an artist.

Red, White, and Blue(after Matisse) 2018 acrylic 18 x 24 inches $350

This still life painted in my apartment several years ago was inspired and influenced by three sources. First sometime in the last ten years I received an email from a fellow high school classmate who referred to me as "patriot." With his local American inspiration I decided to paint on my dining room table in my apartment a patriotic still life of red, white, and blue coffee mugs. In doing this I also wanted to show my political position: the Independent party, independent from leaning too far to the red state side of things or too far to the blue state side of things. So with a white coffee mug in between a red and blue coffee mug I show my independent side but at the same time a unifyied with the red and blue ways of political thinking and being. How by my third motivation: Matisse. By painting all three of these red, white, and blue mugs on top of happy gold and yellow stripes on golden wooden table complemented by silver background I invite the viewer to sit down in my apartment and discuss the red, white, and blue at one unified table of brotherhood(and sisterhood hopefully too)!