This is a new painting I'm calling Spring Wood. You're looking into the sky through the branches of a Honey locust tree in the parking lot of Descanso Gardens in the foothills of Los Angeles last month. The real tree was gnarly with broken branches and wilted petals but the hidden beauty was there to discover. It was the first thing I worked on once we were home although I have a dozen other ideas to paint over the next few months.

If you're of a certain age and remember the song that music critics consider Gordon Lightfoot's second best, you know how fierce the gales of November can be along the shores of Lake Superior. Watch and listen as Lightfoot sings the story of The Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald that in 1975 carried its entire crew to the bottom. His song with its powerful lyrics was released the following year and it impacted everyone then and many to this day. That's the power of art to remind us of important things, the joyous as well as the tragic and everything in between, and to draw out our emotions all over again. I'm relatively unmusical but make my own kind of music with a lens or a brush. And it's always my purpose to tell interesting stories with those skills. This is one such image. Its story and a closer view comes with your click to Continue Reading.

You may have seen the carvings and fine paintings of my mother and grandparents on both sides of my family in three October posts on Instagram. An uncle built the Fitzall custom mouthpiece used by Louis Armstrong and other famous musicians who regularly traveled to backwater Grand Rapids, Michigan to be fitted. My father and brother held patents for industrial designs. And from earliest childhood I was encouraged to be creative with gifts of colored pencils and heavy papers and my efforts were praised and framed. That lifted me effortlessly over the biggest creative hurdle of all--being told I wasn't.

The end of one year is a good time to think about the next. I'm wondering where creativity comes from and how to make it happen! I believe creativity can be learned by anyone at any age and don't believe its given to some but denied to others. As a teacher I taught my own students how to be creative and saw many of them blossom in creative ways once they believed they could. Anyone who really wants to learn can.

So whenever I personally hit an artistic road block, it's good to be reminded. Sometimes the block is getting tired of old ideas and wanting to reinvest in something new and exciting. I've been working on a series that's a shift from painting what I actually see before my eyes and moving toward new associations, allowing my imagination to roam between unrelated words or images for no other reason than to see what might happen, just for fun. That's often how creativity happens, letting the mind free-associate among things that aren't the same at all or are never thought of as connected, for instance flowers and clothing or dancing lines without bodies or swashes of color that make sounds.  

These two new pieces are what snapped to attention when I freed my mind from conventional thinking. I'd begun a new series weeks prior without even realizing it, that became images and ideas like nothing I'd ever created before, blending real things like stairways or flowers into something else, allowing ideas to flow wherever they wanted. "Wants2Dance" and "Flirtatious Lily" were in good company with previous paintings in a series I didn't realized I was making and that was already underway.

Something Old, Something New

I have a new series of paintings that bridges the space between a photograph and creative imagination. Hot Topic is brand new and it began as a discussion about the meaning of art and how art communicates ideas. The paintings was intended to make a better argument for my point that my words. Then there is another work I named Into the Vortex. Its rounding, curving lines seem cocoon-like, a soft space of warmth and comfort meant to represent a personal happy-space, a place of gentleness and peace. What you can't see are the lines of 23 karat gold leaf and copper metal that trace some of the more important edges.

Not all artists start in the same place when beginning a new work. Some artists paint sections of color first, others use pencil or charcoal to sketch a basic scene, some work the whole canvas at once, while others create the main subject before anything else. As for me I create a stage as a set designer might, a place on which future action will occur. I have a new commission that needs a scene into which a young woman will step. She's told her story and now I'll create a portrait to reflect it just as she wishes. I first learned to paint with oil on canvas starting from the background moving forward to the main subject, sometimes into wet paint and other times after the previous layer dried. That habit continues to affect how I think about each new piece of art. I'm often asked how my digital process can look so much like real oil on canvas. Here's the story of my most recent subject together with her sword including images and explanations all along the way.       

Western Wyoming is one of the most alluring areas in the American West. Only by flying low and slow over it can its complexity be fully appreciated. I haven’t named this painting yet. Suggest a name and if I choose yours, I’ll send you a 13" x 17" print on archival paper! Entirely FREE to you, just my way to say thanks!

This is one the most beautiful places in the Caribbean. We arrived at Devil’s Bay aboard a 44 foot power boat and swam ashore with our lunch and a beach umbrella. I carried a small Nikon in a waterproof bag. The rocks looked big from the boat and gigantic once we were close to them. Soon we were introduced to the roaster strutting possessively among his hens. Along the beach they went, in and out of the water, showing us the ropes. There were two mysteries we would discover on our long hike among the rocks. Read on for how my story ends up with me in Moscow USSR in the 1970s . . .

Quirky Carhenge outside of remote Alliance, Nebraska, is built of thirty-eight Detroit-built cars with a 1962 Cadillac serving as the Heel Stone. That's it poking out of the ground just left of the shaft of sunlight at midground. Unlike prehistoric Stonehenge on England's Salisbury Plain, Carhenge serves no astronomical purpose, no sunrise over the Cadillac at summer solstice to mark Midsummer's Day. It can be whatever the observer wants it to be--engineered art, a philosophical statement on life and death, a salute to America's long obsession with the automobile, inspiration for movies, books, and tv. Whatever it is that brings 30,000 annual visitors to this out-of-the-way corner of Nebraska, it takes a good map and determination to find Carhenge. Click Continue Reading below to see the full photo and a link to a fascinating movie, "Genius or Junk" at Vimeo . . .  

I’m drawn to water, skies and clouds. They infuse my “artlook” and are a lifelong habit. I studied earth science toward a career teaching oceanography and weather. learned and loved the Everglades, knew Marjory Stoneman Douglas as mentor and friend. Water, skies and clouds fill my private life too. Read on to learn my hardest thing . . . 

The Mighty Mississippi makes a great subject. Like the people who live along the shore, the river has several personalities revealed throughout the year. In this shot I framed the scene to emphasize strength, competence, and productivity. The river makes all things possible. It can be a destroyer, but here it's cold but calm, and the river and her people are busy. I see a typical early spring sky with scudding clouds bumping up against a blue sky and blue bridges. The Mississippi has passed this point for eons, has carried Indian nations, European traders, American explorers, farm products of the grain belt and so much more. 

We sailed into Tromsø in June, hiked across the city bridge to the Ice Cathedral and returned at dinnertime, four hungry people ready to enjoy some local cuisine. The restaurant on the third floor of a century building in old Tromsø was recommended for its beef, but two in our party decided to try something more rare. As for me, I don't like red meat but loved the red staircase.

I was twenty-three years old when I gave up on winter and moved South. Miami sounded cool, as in warm and smart! My plan was to make a permanent life in the out-of-doors. I took up SCUBA diving, running on the beach, windsurfing, and eventually early morning birding. Running and birding found me a sweetheart and we made a family. After decades learning the ropes and dancing to a Latin beat, life shifted . . .

Sanctuaria della Foresta, the Sanctuary of the Forest is on the route St. Francis traveled in the 13th century. I watched a young man gather chestnuts one nut at a time. After each nut he walked the length of a dry laid stone wall to place each nut on the retaining wall of a fish pond.

Smoke filled valleys over cloud mountains in the River of No Return created an unforgettable scene of beauty where there was massive destruction below.

Change can be good but it’s also hard. I'm an artist who built a business, then threw away many of the pieces to start over in a better way.