"Valley of Shadows"

Valley of Shadows

In September 2017, Joy and I visited a good friend in Munich, Germany. While there, we explored what is left of the concentration camp at Dachau. Nothing could have prepared me for what I saw and felt. 

Visitors to Dachau are very quiet. It's a horrible and holy place. The weight of the evil is still there. You can still feel it. I think it will always be palpable. It should be. I left Dachau needing to express my own grief. This painting is that expression.

Notes about Valley of Shadows
1) Featured on the far left of this piece is the iron gate with the words "Arbeit Macht Frei" (Work Makes you Free). This gate was the way in, but rarely the way out.

2) Moving to the right, set against and gray and blue stripes reminiscent of the uniform prisoners were given to wear is the gold star of David, beneath which are the countless souls who suffered here.

3) Moving to the far right, I inserted a scene from the Arch of Titus in Rome, featuring Roman soldiers carrying off the menorah from the temple in Jerusalem (another time of absolute grief and horror). It is at this point, against the blackness, I inserted a symbol of hope. Hope is displayed near the far right of the canvas, carrying the eye off the artwork...onto...what? That is what hope does -- carries our imagination into the unknown, with the assumption that goodness and beauty and life is coming soon.

"Even when I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of death,
I will not fear, because You are with me.
Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." Psalm 23:4

Catawba Falls

I love Catawba Falls. It's a really beautiful waterfall at the end of a (sometimes steep) trail just down the mountain from us in Old Fort, North Carolina. The trail winds along the river and ends at a cliff and this really beautiful waterfall and pool (great for swimming in summer by the way). 

Joy and I discovered Catawba Falls with the help of my daughter Camden. She had hiked here before and told us about the trail so...we had to discover it ourselves. This is one of countless waterfalls within an hour of our home here in Asheville. What an amazing thing it is to be a landscape painter in the River Arts District, so close to so much...uh...landscape! We try to get out and hike every day off (weather and house chores permitting). 

This painting was commissioned by some very nice folks (Asheville locals) who came into my art studio and asked a question I LOVE to get asked: "Do you do commissions? We have a specific photo of a very special place to us". I love that. Of course, I was excited to talk to them about the project (about half of what I sell are commissions). I love commissions for many reasons. They are a pre-paid painting so uh, that's nice. But it's also a great way to not only get a nice piece of art (I'll keep painting it until it IS a nice piece of art) but it's also the opportunity to create something sentimental to the client. I've painted photos from honeymoons and vacations all over the world. 

So...Catawba Falls is done and is to be picked up this week. If you want directions to the trail, just email me or swing by my Asheville studio. Cheers!

"Valley of Shadows"

"Valley of Shadows" is taking shape, and it is haunting. This is really the most difficult piece I've ever done. I find I can only work on it for about 20 minutes at a time. The texture is nearly laid and should be ready to cover with the aluminum leaf shortly. I really enjoy painting beauty and this is not beautiful at all. I hope it's powerful though.

I find it difficult to interact with people coming into my River Arts District studio while I'm working on this piece. Seriously! "Oh!" says some woman from any random state in the U.S. upon entering the studio. "Look George! The artist is working!" (This is my studio. Of course I'm working.) "What are you working on?" she asks excitedly.

How do I explain what I'm working on? "Well, I'm depicted corpses at the moment". What do I say? I try to work on this first thing in the morning, before many people are wondering in. Folks, this is really difficult.

Everything else I paint, I am completely fine with being interrupted with questions and with people coming around my desk for a closer look at what I'm working on at the moment. This one is different. I feel like the time I am working on this is holy. Truly sacred. I don't want it interrupted.

So if you're reading this and you're a recent early morning visitor to my studio and wondered why the artist was so aloof and in his own little world, well...now you know. I apologize. I really was in my own little world, but I had to be there. I had to be focused. I had to listen in my head. So difficult. I would much prefer painting mountain scenes around Asheville. 

Autumn River Song

"Autumn River Song". This was a fun one. A while back, I had a gentleman visit my art studio in Asheville's River Arts District and he spent a good deal of time wandering around studying my artwork. We had a really nice conversation and then he left, taking a card.  This was not that unusual. Visitors to the art studio take a LOT of business cards and that's cool. That's what they're there for. But this guy called back a few days later and said he wanted to surprise his girlfriend with a painting of mine. That made my day. I love commissions!

He got on my website and found an older painting of mine that he liked, but wanted a few things changed. Here's the original painting:

He asked that some of the rocks be removed from the right side and replace the foreground rocks with new moss-covered rocks. And he wanted autumn colors rather than summer greens. I love commissions! And I love it when a client feels the freedom to get involved (he actually spent a good deal of time hunting for the foreground rocks he wanted).

I love revisting a painting I enjoyed the first time, and tweaking it, creating a brand new and unique piece of art. It's like taking leftovers of a great leg of lamb and potato dinner and making stew out of it,  you know? It's like and unlike the original "go-round". I once heard that there really is nothing unique, just unique ways of re-combining preexisting elements, and I think that's right. How many ways can just four elements (ADTP for instance) be combined and recombined to create over 7,000,000 unique individual people? I think this really does apply to art. How many times did Monet paint waterlilies or St.Paul's cathedral? Countless. But each one is unique and he obviously revisted the idea because it gave him joy. That's how creativity works.

And when I see this new piece that combined old and new ideas, it gives me a great deal of joy. That's why I paint. So if you're considering commissioning a unique oil painting, let's talk! It's a blast.

Autumnal Shift

Abstract oil paintings are always mysterious to me. I have a vague idea of the color palette I want to use, but honestly, I have no idea what I'm doing. That's what I enjoy about painting an abstract piece. The piece itself really kind of evolves by itself and I sometimes just feel like I'm only involved in the gentlest of ways. I tell people painting an abstract painting is like raising a teenager -- you might as well not even bother trying to make it this or that because in the end, it kind of makes up its own mind. It's good for us control freaks to paint abstract art I think. 

This painting entitled "Autumnal Shift" (thank you to Kris Archbold on my Facebook feed for the title!). It has a lot of texture -- vertical and horizontal scratches and raised areas, and then finished with just a bit of judiciously applied gold leaf. 

When I posted the photo of this piece on my Facebook page, I asked people what they saw, and what it should be named. It was an interesting and very well received little exercise. People saw a city scene on a river, tall ships and hilltops on fire. That's what I like about abstract art. It's almost like staring at the clouds -- abstract invites the participation of the viewer. "What is it?" you ask. Ahhh -- now I've got you. You must get involved and figure it out. What is it? What do you see?

“Abstraction allows man to see with his mind what he cannot see physically with his eyes....Abstract art enables the artist to perceive beyond the tangible, to extract the infinite out of the finite. It is the emancipation of the mind. It is an exploration into unknown areas.” -- Arshile Gorky
 

Valley of Shadows

While we were in Germany the last couple of weeks, one of the things I needed to do was to visit what remains of the concentration camp at Dachau, just outside of Munich. I needed to see it because several weeks ago, a gentleman visited my Asheville studio and asked me to consider doing a painting commission based on the Holocaust, which was the strangest and most daunting request for an art commission I'd ever received. But I felt like this was something I needed to do.

The commission itself did not work out, but the idea was planted in my head and it's been growing. It will be dark and disturbing, but artists before me have depicted dark and disturbing subjects before (Goya comes to mind). So I wanted to visit Dachau (since it's so close to Munich where we were staying) and soak it in -- let it do in my heart whatever it wanted to do so that I could then depict that in my future painting.

It was not pleasant.

The only way I could take it in was to not fully take it all in. I don't know how anyone can "fully" take it in. I felt myself hardening while I strolled slowly through the grounds. Row upon row of barracks foundations still stand, and I felt a horrible weight. I've never felt anything so miserable and dark and dreadful before.

Row upon row of barracks.

Close your eyes and you still can't imagine the pain of the place. These were real human lives and I wanted to hear them but again, I felt a self-protective "deadening" of my heart. It was the only way I could keep walking; could keep "listening".

It got darker still.

We walked into the very room where people were told to strip. We walked into the next room, tiled floor to ceiling as though it were a shower. I walked into that dark room, silent now but you can still feel a horrible weightiness there. Crushing.

We saw rafters in front of crematory ovens from which people were hung, so that the last thing on this earth they would see would be the open oven door.

No one speaks at Dachau. Communication is in short whispers. It is a holy and horrible place. No one knows how to take it all in and comprehend it. How can you? How can you even begin?

How did this happen? Germany was not a third world country full of back-woods people controlled by superstition. They were a major western civilization, full of creative people. It was a country full of world famous musicians, painters, writers and scientists. But it was a struggling country. They felt like they were not in control of their destiny anymore. They wanted Germany to be great again and they found someone who promised the moon. And then they turned their head when the horrors began to happen. How could this have happened? I think the scenario sounds hauntingly familiar. Similar things could happen anywhere in any generation unless we remember and learn from the past. If you listen, in places like Dachau, the past still has a voice and it is dark and absolutely crushing.

I know now what I need to paint. Some would say it's a waste of time because it may never sell. But art is my voice. And right now, I want to speak.

More to come.

the breakers

"the breakers" (18" x 24")

This was was...uh...interesting. I hear people come in my studio and say silly things to each other like "well remember, there are NO MISTAKES in art". Rubbish. I've made them all. I originally started this one several weeks ago and I liked the idea: very subtle gray, dark, muted colors. Anyway, it should have been hanging on my wall this last month except I was so disgusted with the original version of it that I took my paint-thinner soaked rag to it and wiped off as much paint as I could, then completely re-covered it with aluminum leaf and started over. This time, I switched gears and went with aquatic colors. As usually, I had no idea what was going to happen in this abstract as it progressed, but the very last day of paint application, it took the form of an abstracted seascape: waves crashing. I was very happy. 

So the next time you hear someone say something ridiculous like "there are no mistakes in art", just butt in please and tell them "uh...you mean there are no mistakes that can't be corrected". Happily, most "mistakes" can indeed be remedied with some grit and determination. 

So enjoy "the breakers".

The Three Voices
by Robert W. Service

The waves have a story to tell me, 
As I lie on the lonely beach; 
Chanting aloft in the pine-tops, 
The wind has a lesson to teach; 
But the stars sing an anthem of glory
I cannot put into speech. 

The waves tell of ocean spaces, 
Of hearts that are wild and brave, 
Of populous city places, 
Of desolate shores they lave, 
Of men who sally in quest of gold
To sink in an ocean grave. 

The wind is a mighty roamer; 
He bids me keep me free, 
Clean from the taint of the gold-lust, 
Hardy and pure as he; 
Cling with my love to nature, 
As a child to the mother-knee. 

But the stars throng out in their glory, 
And they sing of the God in man; 
They sing of the Mighty Master, 
Of the loom his fingers span, 
Where a star or a soul is a part of the whole, 
And weft in the wondrous plan. 

Here by the camp-fire's flicker, 
Deep in my blanket curled, 
I long for the peace of the pine-gloom, 
When the scroll of the Lord is unfurled, 
And the wind and the wave are silent, 
And world is singing to world.

"Cullasaja Falls" Completion photo

Well here it is. Done. After just over 13 months, it's now hanging on my wall, and it's hard for me to get used to. It's actually shocking every time I pass by. "OMG! Okay yes, there you are!"  It's like someone belting out a strain from a Wagnerian opera every time you walk by it (it's very hard to ignore).

I learned a whole lot from this project. I hadn't really don't much with the "waterfall theme" before, but now that I've gotten my feet wet so to speak (pardon the pun), I've got two other waterfall paintings nearly done (though much smaller in scale). 

No other painting has been so challenging and really, no other has given me so much joy in it's creation. 

"Under The Waterfall" by Thomas Hardy

'Whenever I plunge my arm, like this, 
In a basin of water, I never miss
The sweet sharp sense of a fugitive day
Fetched back from its thickening shroud of gray. 
Hence the only prime
And real love-rhyme
That I know by heart, 
And that leaves no smart, 
Is the purl of a little valley fall
About three spans wide and two spans tall
Over a table of solid rock, 
And into a scoop of the self-same block; 
The purl of a runlet that never ceases
In stir of kingdoms, in wars, in peaces; 
With a hollow boiling voice it speaks
And has spoken since hills were turfless peaks.'

'And why gives this the only prime
Idea to you of a real love-rhyme? 
And why does plunging your arm in a bowl
Full of spring water, bring throbs to your soul?'

'Well, under the fall, in a crease of the stone, 
Though precisely where none ever has known, 
Jammed darkly, nothing to show how prized, 
And by now with its smoothness opalized, 
Is a grinking glass: 
For, down that pass
My lover and I
Walked under a sky
Of blue with a leaf-wove awning of green, 
In the burn of August, to paint the scene, 
And we placed our basket of fruit and wine
By the runlet's rim, where we sat to dine; 
And when we had drunk from the glass together, 
Arched by the oak-copse from the weather, 
I held the vessel to rinse in the fall, 
Where it slipped, and it sank, and was past recall, 
Though we stooped and plumbed the little abyss
With long bared arms. There the glass still is. 
And, as said, if I thrust my arm below
Cold water in a basin or bowl, a throe
From the past awakens a sense of that time, 
And the glass we used, and the cascade's rhyme. 
The basin seems the pool, and its edge
The hard smooth face of the brook-side ledge, 
And the leafy pattern of china-ware
The hanging plants that were bathing there.

'By night, by day, when it shines or lours, 
There lies intact that chalice of ours, 
And its presence adds to the rhyme of love
Persistently sung by the fall above. 
No lip has touched it since his and mine
In turns therefrom sipped lovers' wine.'

Finishing up "My Marathon"

Pouring the resin (FINALLY!)

I have been waiting for this resin pour for over a year now. This painting, my depiction of Cullasaja Falls, (pronounced Kull-uh-say-ja) was begun a year ago now, and at 6' x 8', it is the largest single panel painting I've ever done. It also is the most detailed piece I've worked on. Over this past year, I've had multiple visitors to my River Arts District art studio ask "Oh, when are you finishing THAT one!?" My answer has usually been "I have no idea. I'll just keep working on it until it says it's done".

The Journey

My first post about this piece was back on July 18th of last year. That post shows where this all started (a blank wood panel). A month later, my panel was prepped and I was beginning to apply my texture sketch. By November, my texture was applied and I was ready to seal the painting, preparing it for the application of the aluminum leaf. Eleven months later, I was in the "home stretch, starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. 

It's been really nice working on the painting this way. My original idea was that it would probably take six months to complete. Considering the fact that the rest of my oil paintings take about a month, I thought I was being generous with my six month time schedule. But six months came and went, uh, six months ago and I didn't care. The goal I had was to produce something that would (at least for this day in 2017) represent the very best I could possibly do, and to do that took a lot of time.

Well this painting is done now and last night, I poured the resin. And this time, rather than achieving a thick glassy smooth surface, I wanted to apply just one layer of resin. This left a lot of the texture quite visible. I spent weeks and weeks of texture application and didn't want to cover it all up, and with just one layer, the painting will sparkle.

Today (Tuesday) is my day off (THANK YOU RUTH VANN FOR WATCHING MY STUDIO ON TUESDAYS!) and I'm making myself wait until tomorrow morning to go in and inspect the piece. As long as I didn't have any gnats or flies dive-bombing into the resin while it was still curing, I'll be fine.  And tomorrow is party time! By the end of the day, the largest painting I've ever painted will be hanging on my studio wall!

Half Baked Ideas...

I usually don't show anyone what a half-completed painting looks like, but then I thought it might actually be interesting for friends to see. Every painting I do goes through what I call "the ugly stage" and these pieces, each approximately 50% complete, have JUST come out the other side of that ugly stage. Admittedly, they ain't beauties yet but they're not as hideous looking as they were a few days ago (trust me on that). When these pieces are complete, I'll post side-by-side photos (in process / finished) if people are interested.