My Most Ambitious Project to Date: Pont Neuf at Dusk

There are moments in an artist's journey when you know you're pushing yourself into entirely new territory. This is one of those moments.

For months now, I've been immersed in what has become the most ambitious project I've ever undertaken: a depiction of the Pont Neuf in Paris at dusk. The composition's complexity has demanded every bit of patience, skill, and vision I can muster—and I'm still in the early stages of bringing it to life.

A Labor of Love (and Layers)

This week marks a significant milestone. After months of careful planning and preparation, I'm finally moving into the texture and carving stage. This is where the magic really happens—where every element is meticulously built up, sanded, and shaped by hand before the metallic leaf and oil paint are applied.

If you're familiar with my work, you know that texture is my language. It's how I create depth, movement, and emotion in my pieces. My paintings typically feature three or four layers of carefully crafted texture. But this piece? This beast is going to require over fifty layers.

Yes, you read that right. Fifty.

Embracing the Joyous Tedium

I'll be honest—the scale of what lies ahead is both exhilarating and daunting. Each layer needs to be applied with intention, allowed to set, then carved and refined before the next can be added. It's painstaking work that demands absolute focus and precision. One misstep, and hours of progress can be compromised.

But here's the thing: I'm learning to lean into what I call the "joyous tedium" of this process. There's something meditative about the repetition, something deeply satisfying about watching a vision slowly, methodically take form beneath your hands. This isn't the instant gratification of a quick sketch—this is a marathon, a test of dedication and craft.

Why the Pont Neuf?

The Pont Neuf holds a special place in my heart. Despite its name—which means "New Bridge"—it's actually the oldest standing bridge across the Seine in Paris. There's something poetic about that contradiction, something that speaks to the layers of history, the passage of time, and the enduring beauty of great architecture.

Capturing it at dusk adds another dimension entirely. That fleeting golden hour when the light softens, the shadows deepen, and the city takes on an almost dreamlike quality—it's a challenge I couldn't resist. The interplay of light on stone, the reflection in the water, the way the bridge connects two banks and two worlds... it all needs to be translated into texture and metallic shimmer.

The Challenge Ahead

This isn't my biggest piece in terms of physical dimensions, but it's absolutely the most complex challenge I've ever set for myself. Every architectural detail, every play of light, every ripple in the water—it all needs to be considered, planned, and executed with precision.

The months I've already invested have taught me so much about patience, about trusting the process, and about the difference between complexity and chaos. Now, as I stand at the threshold of the most intensive phase, I'm taking a deep breath and preparing for the journey ahead.

Following the Journey

I'll be sharing progress updates as this piece evolves, layer by layer. Some weeks might show dramatic transformations; others might reveal changes so subtle they're almost invisible to anyone but me. But each layer, each carved detail, each moment of careful work is bringing me closer to the vision I've been carrying in my mind's eye.

I can't wait to see this come to life. And I'm grateful to have you along for the ride.

The Human Rhythm: Why the Golden Section Matters

When we discuss the Golden Section in the human body, we must tread carefully. The human form does not—and should not—conform perfectly to a mathematical ideal. You only need to spend an afternoon at the beach to see the truth: bodies are beautifully varied, asymmetrical, and shaped by the messy realities of genetics, culture, and age. Yet, despite this diversity, proportional relationships mirroring the Golden Section appear again and again—not as rigid rules, but as persistent tendencies.

The Artist’s Intuition

Artists noticed this long before scientists attempted to quantify it. Classical sculptors and Renaissance painters studied the body obsessively, searching for proportions that felt balanced rather than merely "correct." Leonardo da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man is less a diagram of perfection and more an exploration of relationship—how the body organizes itself around a center. From the ratio of the navel to total height to the spacing of facial features, many of these measurements hover near that familiar 62%–38% division.

Beyond Beauty: The Logic of Stability

Why does this matter? Because humans are hard-wired to read bodies. Long before we think consciously, we register whether a form looks physically coherent—whether it could plausibly stand, move, or bear its own weight.

This isn't about "attractiveness" in a commercial sense; it’s about intelligibility. When the relative sizes of the head, torso, and limbs fall within these familiar ranges, the figure reads as stable and alive. When these relationships are absent, the body feels awkward or weightless, even if the viewer can’t quite pinpoint why. A body with natural proportion makes visual sense because it appears governed by gravity and anatomy. We believe it could walk, reach, or turn without collapsing. That belief is what creates "presence."

The Anchor of the Figure

The Golden Ratio approximates how mass is distributed around our center of gravity. When artists use these proportions—even loosely—the figure feels anchored in space. This explains why even highly stylized figures can feel convincing; they may exaggerate or simplify, but as long as they preserve these key proportional rhythms, the body still "adds up." The viewer doesn’t admire the math, but they trust the figure.

This logic extends into movement. Walking, reaching, and bending all involve proportional relationships that minimize strain and maximize efficiency. Over time, these mechanical efficiencies shape our form. In the human body, what looksbalanced often is balanced.

Recognizing the Rhythm

For the artist, the Golden Section is not a formula to be imposed, but an underlying rhythm to be recognized. It provides a shorthand for placement, scale, and emphasis—helping us decide where the weight should rest and where a gesture should resolve.

In the end, these proportions remind us that we are not separate from the patterns we admire in the world around us. The ratios we find beautiful in art and nature are written, imperfectly but unmistakably, into ourselves.

Nature’s Quiet Mathematics: The Golden Section at Work

Nature doesn't sit down with a calculator. It doesn't plan or measure. And yet somehow, the Golden Section keeps showing up—not because nature's trying to win a beauty contest, but because it works.

Take plants. Leaves spiral around stems at angles that relate to the Golden Ratio, which means each leaf gets its fair share of sunlight without blocking the others. Sunflowers pack their seeds in interlocking spirals based on Fibonacci numbers (which get closer and closer to the Golden Ratio the higher you go). Pinecones and pineapples do the same thing. It's not about looking pretty—it's about not wasting space.

Then there are shells and storms. A nautilus shell grows by making each new chamber a little bigger than the last, always by the same ratio. The result is that perfect spiral you've probably seen in photos. The shell gets bigger, but its shape stays balanced. Hurricanes spiral the same way. So do some galaxies. These aren't copying each other—they're all solving similar problems about how to grow without falling apart.

As for us? Our bodies show hints of it too. The ratio between your forearm and hand. Where your belly button sits relative to your height. The spacing of your eyes and nose. None of this is exact, and people come in all proportions, but the Golden Section shows up often enough that it makes you wonder: maybe what we find beautiful is just what our bodies recognize as familiar.

What I think nature's really showing us is that the Golden Section isn't about being perfect. It's about lasting. Growth that follows this ratio spreads things out evenly, avoids clutter, and bends without breaking.

Maybe that's why artists and architects keep coming back to it. When we use the Golden Section, we're not inventing something new—we're borrowing a blueprint that's already been tested. Turns out beauty might just be efficiency in disguise.

The Golden Section in Architecture: Building with Human Scale

The Golden Section and the Parthenon

Architecture is where the Golden Section stops being abstract and starts shaping the rooms you walk through every day. A painting hangs on a wall. A building is the wall—and the floor, and the ceiling. When the proportions work, you relax without thinking about it. When they don't, something just feels off, even if you can't say why.

For centuries, builders have used the Golden Section to create spaces that feel right. In ancient Greece, the proportions show up all over temple design—façades, columns, even the angle of a pediment. Take the Parthenon. It's not that someone measured every stone to match the ratio exactly. It's more that the whole thing keeps circling back to it. The effect? A building that feels grounded, balanced, like it's been there forever.

Fast forward to the Renaissance, and architects like Leon Battista Alberti and Andrea Palladio are obsessed with reconnecting buildings to the human body. They noticed that a room split roughly 62%–38% just works. Windows spaced that way don't feel cluttered or lonely. A staircase built on that rhythm doesn't wear you out or make you rush—it just flows.

The real magic is in scale. The Golden Section helps bridge the gap between "too big" and "too small." A cathedral might reach toward the sky, but the doorways, side aisles, little chapels—they're sized so you don't feel swallowed up. Even today's architects, sometimes without realizing it, fall back on similar ratios when they're figuring out how tall a wall should be or how much glass to put in.

Here's the thing: the Golden Section isn't a look. It doesn't care if you're building with marble or concrete, Gothic arches or clean modernist lines. It's just a rhythm underneath everything, a way of organizing space that lines up with how we actually see and feel balance.

The best architecture, like the best art, doesn't show you the math. It just lets the proportions do their thing quietly in the background. When the Golden Section is working, you don't notice it at all.

You just feel like you belong there.

The Golden Section in Music: Proportions You Can Feel

We often think of music as pure emotion—a rush of sound that hits us in the chest. But underneath that feeling, music is an architecture built out of time. Just as a painter uses the Golden Section to guide your eye across a canvas, a composer uses it to guide your ear through a story.

Why the Middle Isn't the Peak

If a song is five minutes long, you’d think the "big moment" should happen right at the 2:30 mark. But in practice, that usually feels a bit... flat. It’s too symmetrical.

Instead, the most hair-raising climaxes usually land around 62% of the way through. It’s that sweet spot where the tension has built up just long enough to feel earned, but there’s still enough time left to breathe before the end. It’s not just a math trick; it’s a reflection of how we actually experience life—think of the way a long exhale feels or the way a wave builds slowly before it finally breaks.

From Bach to the Radio

Classical heavyweights like Bach and Beethoven seemed to have an internal compass for this. If you look at the dramatic return of the main theme in Beethoven’s Fifth Symphony, it lands almost exactly on that Golden Ratio point. Later, Béla Bartók took it a step further, intentionally obsessed with mapping out his notes and phrases to match these natural patterns.

But you don’t need a tuxedo to hear this in action. Listen to almost any great pop song. The bridge usually hits right after the second chorus—roughly two-thirds into the track. It’s that perfect "pivot" moment that keeps the song from getting repetitive and pushes us toward the finish line.

The Instinct for Balance

The best part? You don’t need a degree in music theory to "get" it. We’re wired to respond to these proportions. We recognize them in the way trees grow or the way we breathe.

In the end, the Golden Section isn't a rigid set of rules or a cheat code for a hit song. It’s more like a quiet heartbeat underneath the melody. It’s what makes a piece of music feel less like a sequence of notes and more like something that is—quite literally—alive.

The Golden Ratio in Art: Where Math Meets Beauty

This morning, I began a new painting. I have a clear vision of what I want to create, but long before any paint touches the canvas, I start with measurements. “Ah, 30 inches.” Thirty-eight percent of 30 is 11.4—so I make a small tick mark at 11.4 inches and draw a horizontal line across the canvas. Then I measure the width: “42 inches. Thirty-eight percent of 42 is 15.96.” Another tick mark, another line. I continue dividing my canvas into 38%-62% sections, creating a precise framework before a single brushstroke. This grid is like the skeleton of the painting; the colors and forms that will follow are the flesh. Everything begins with math. The specific ratio I’m using is called the Golden Section—or the Divine Proportion—a mathematical relationship that artists have relied on for centuries to create harmony and balance.

The Golden Section, approximately 1:1.618, is a ratio that appears naturally in nature—in the spirals of shells, the branching of trees, even the proportions of the human body. Artists discovered that applying this ratio to their work creates compositions that feel inherently balanced and pleasing to the eye. Renaissance masters such as Leonardo da Vinci and Raphael often used it to structure their paintings, while modern artists like Mondrian applied similar principles to create tension and movement within abstract forms.

In practice, the Golden Section helps artists decide where to place focal points, divide spaces, and guide the viewer’s eye across the canvas. It’s not a rigid rule but a flexible guideline that transforms numbers into visual rhythm. Using it doesn’t guarantee a masterpiece—but it gives every element a sense of natural order, a hidden harmony that viewers may sense even if they cannot define it.

In art, the Golden Section asserts to us that beauty is not random. Beauty emerges from proportion, balance, and the subtle intersection of math and intuition. The canvas becomes more than paint on cloth—it becomes a reflection of the order and elegance found in the world itself.

Finding Peace in the Christmas Chaos

Merry Christmas!

Okay, so this morning was not quiet. Christmas Day arrived loud, messy, and at full speed.

There were voices overlapping, Jingle Bell Rock playing in the background, kids constantly calculating the number of presents everyone got (to make sure it was fair). Carefully laid plans collided with messy reality, and that familiar sense of trying to be fully present while also keeping everything from tipping over. It wasn’t serene or postcard-perfect. But, it was real. That’s my family.

I’m writing this in the space after all that. The moment when the house settles, the light changes, and you can take a deep breath for the first time all day. As an artist, I’ve learned to pay attention to moments like this, because they’re often where the meaning shows up — not in the rush, but in what comes after.

In painting, I’m always looking for balance: areas of activity set against quiet, complexity softened by simplicity. Without contrast, nothing really stands out, you know? Maybe that’s true of days like today too. The noise makes the calm feel earned. The chaos makes the stillness noticeable.

This isn’t a religious blog, but art often points me toward something deeper; something spiritual: The calm that comes after the storm. The feeling of being held in a moment that doesn’t ask for effort or answers. The quiet truth that even chaotic days can settle into something tender if we let them. That is often what I end up painting (or try to anyway).

Right now, the light is softer. Shadows are longer. The room feels human again. These are the moments I return to in my work — not the dramatic high points, but the quiet clarity that follows them.

But perhaps…the quiet isn’t the absence of chaos at all. Maybe it’s learning how to breathe inside that chaos — to embrace the noise, the imperfections, and still find ways to express care and love to the people sharing the moment with us.

Wishing you peace this Christmas!

Seeing Meaning: How Medieval Art Spoke Without Words

Medieval art can feel distant at first glance—flat figures, gold backgrounds, strange proportions—but it was never meant to be distant. It was meant to speak clearly, powerfully, and often urgently to the people who encountered it. In a world where most people could not read, images carried the weight of teaching, memory, and belief.

Unlike later Renaissance art, medieval artists were not trying to recreate the world as it appears to the eye. Their goal was not realism but meaning. Size was symbolic rather than anatomical: Christ or a saint appears larger because of spiritual importance, not physical presence. Perspective bends or disappears because heaven does not follow earthly rules. Gold backgrounds dissolve space entirely, suggesting eternity rather than landscape.

Much medieval art was created for churches, monasteries, and pilgrimage sites. Mosaics, frescoes, illuminated manuscripts, stained glass, and carved reliefs worked together to form immersive environments. These were not decorative objects but visual theology. A single image might condense an entire biblical narrative or doctrine into a form that could be grasped in a moment.

Emotion, too, plays a role—especially in later medieval works. Faces become more expressive, suffering more tangible, devotion more intimate. The art invites empathy, contemplation, and prayer.

To understand medieval art, we have to let go of modern expectations. It is not asking to be admired for technical mastery alone. It is asking to be read, pondered, and entered into. When approached on its own terms, medieval art reveals a world where beauty, faith, and daily life were inseparably woven together.

The Matterhorn and the Magic of Transformation

I grew up in the outskirts of Los Angeles, where smog and sunshine mixed in equal measure. The only redeeming element to this location for me was that we lived about an hour from Disneyland. Once a year, my parents would load us kids into the back of our station wagon, and we’d set off on what felt like a pilgrimage. The most sacred part of the trip, at least to us kids, was the competition to see who could spot the Matterhorn first. For the uninitiated, the Matterhorn is Disneyland’s snow-capped mountain — a roller coaster in disguise — rising improbably from the flat California landscape. To catch a glimpse of it was proof: we were close to magic.

What made Disneyland so special was not the rides. Carnivals had rides. At least once a year, the carnival would roll into some dusty vacant lot, set up their rattling rides and neon booths, and for a week it was great fun. We rode the Ferris wheel, ate cotton candy, and felt like kings of our small world. But no one confused that carnival with Disneyland. The carnival gave you thrills; Disneyland gave you worlds.

That was the difference: theming. A carnival offered rides in a parking lot. Disneyland transformed orange groves into universes. Walking into Tomorrowland in the 1960s was like stepping into the future we thought the year 2000 might bring — sleek rockets, gleaming towers, a promise of space travel just around the corner. Frontierland pulled you backward, to the banks of the Mississippi, where paddleboats churned the water and wooden stockades smelled faintly of adventure. And then there was Pirates of the Caribbean, which didn’t just give you animatronic buccaneers. No, it escorted you into the American South at twilight, where fireflies flickered, moss hung heavy from the trees, and mint juleps cooled in tall glasses.

It wasn’t about fooling the eye so much as enchanting the imagination. The park asked you to suspend disbelief, and you gladly obliged. What amazed me most, even as a child, was knowing — really knowing — that beneath all that wonder lay a flat stretch of Southern California where oranges once grew. And yet, once you walked through those gates, you were somewhere else entirely. The magic was not in tricking you but in persuading you to feel transported.

IT WASN’T ABOUT FOOLING THE EYE SO MUCH AS ENCHANTING THE IMAGINATION.

That feeling lodged deep in me. Those yearly pilgrimages to Disneyland taught me that the real power of creativity in general and (for me) art in specific is transformation — not just changing how a place looks, but how it feels. The strongest art doesn’t merely decorate; it alters the atmosphere of a room, the mood of the viewer, the story you believe you’re inside. That’s why, for me, a painting doesn’t just hang on a wall — it can theme a space, just as surely as Disney themed a park.

Those childhood pilgrimages left me with more than fond memories. They gave me a compass as an artist. What I love most about painting is exactly what I loved most about Disneyland: the power to take someone by the hand and, if only for a while, transport them into another world.

Commissions vs Completed Pieces…Which is Right for You?

Every painting has a story. Sometimes that story begins in the studio, as I layer colors and shapes until an unexpected image takes on a life of its own. Other times, the story begins with you—with a memory, a place, or a dream you want to capture on canvas.

When you choose a completed piece, you’re stepping into a story that’s already alive. The painting has been waiting quietly for the right person. Many visitors have told me, “I walked past dozens of paintings, but this one stopped me in my tracks.” That instant recognition is powerful. It’s as though the painting has found its home, and you’ve found something you didn’t even know you were missing.

Commissions are a different kind of magic. They begin with your story. Perhaps it’s the glow of autumn in the Blue Ridge Mountains, the fountain in Savannah where you proposed, or the winding trail where you feel most alive. Together we translate that moment into something lasting. You become part of the process—watching the first sketches, choosing the colors that speak to you, seeing the painting take form layer by layer. When it’s complete, you don’t just own a piece of art—you own a piece of your own story, transformed into something you can live with every day.

“COMMISSIONS ARE A DIFFERENT KIND OF MAGIC.”

So which is right for you? The truth is, there’s no wrong choice. Some paintings are discovered; others are created in partnership. What matters most is the connection you feel when you stand before it. Because the right painting—whether found or commissioned—will always feel like it was meant for you.

If you’re curious to see what’s waiting, I invite you to visit my studio in Asheville (344 Depot Street, #104) or browse the available paintings online (www.stclaireart.com). And if you feel a story of your own tugging at your heart, let’s start a conversation about creating a commission together.