Paintings
painting Series. Shallow Recollections.
These paintings are Polymer Glazed images on board. The size for the small work is 24 x 12. The larger works are 50X28. The process is a glaze and remove technique. With each layer of new glaze a fresh image appears. Each painting consists of about 20 to 50 layers of glaze. I start with figurative subjects-memories mostly of my childhood. The first layers of glaze are crimson and cadmium oranges and are meant to stain and leave the initial intended mark. As the layers build, I add opacity to the mix, obscuring all but a faint memory of the starting point for the painting.
Drift-sold
Solo-sold
Dream-sold
Separation-sold
Reunion
detail left panel_Bathers -sold
Bathers Triptych-sold
Red Suit
Mother, Sister, Daughter-sold
Mesmerized, full stare into direct sunlight. Laughter, splashing, lulling waves. SHALLOW RECOLLECTIONS, lapping along the edge of the horizon. Flickering spots of sunlight on burned skin dipped and glazed with phosphorescent drops of holiday.
Mother seemed old then. She is young and radiant to me now. I’m older this day than she was then. The time was 1976. Her floppy hat hides flattened bouffant, sea-sprayed hair. White winged temples wilting from ninety percent humidity. Bold black and white polka dot swimsuit. Dirty gulf waters licking red vacation polished toes digging into warm sand. She loved the ocean. Grew too afraid to fly, never again to breath in the intoxicating smell of sticky salt water tides.
A big man, his belly buoyant, bouncing. White-bread skin, rash red on arms and neck from weekend hours at play. A leisure man’s tan. He allows the third child to hold his hand in waves over her head. Watched by the water adoring, mother. Close, but beyond reach, she wades no further than ankle deep into joy. Remaining always at the edge of play. Too consumed by fear. Reminded constantly of life’s fragility. Of all the wrong that can happen in this world.
I gag on salty gulf water, gritty with sand, staining my upper lip to lick, I spit and spit again, DNA separating and breaking apart, pulled out with tumbling currents. Gulf waters as near to ocean as I would know as a child until the required move toward bigger dreams. Eastern shores and big city. Away from all that was familiar. Family ended there in southern-middle America.
The parental set gone now. Sibling shards scattered. Safe and away, I wade through dreams of bleached memories. Blinding light. Blurred focus. Cherished collection of tumbled sea glass. Sharp edges softened in time. Life’s potent beauty.
Pale fragments to be collected and displayed on shelves. Arranged to my liking until boxed in velvet, replaced and forgotten.
