In the early eighties nobody had any money and we all moved around the city a lot. Starting out down on East third street, between ave A and B, it was a tough neighborhood, Tompkins square park was called murder park back then, and for good reason. That little apartment was my first studio and I painted like a fiend, lookng at everything i could. We stole five gallon cans of paint they used on subways from the tunnels when we needed it.
School lasted a couple years, until the money ran out. Rodney Greenblat was in my sculpture class, Keith Haring was just a couple years ahead of me. That was the year SVA started their art abroad program. Six weeks in Tangier, painting with Don Eddy and becoming good friends with artist Tom Kinder, and writer Rodrigo Rey Rosa. After coming home I worked as a motorcycle messenger, cab driver, factory worker, truck driver, and all around thug. That was the year of the big Guston show. An epiphany for me. He died in 1980, and i was just getting started. It seemed natural to pick up where he left off, and even today, thirty six years later, I think about him all the time.
My studio moved from Manhattan to Flushing. Then Long Island City, Williamsburg, and Greenpoint. We fixed motorcycles in front so the studios always had a rough shop quality. Drill press, work bench, grinders, welders, tools, guns, knives and pieces of stripped bikes hanging around. Littered with broken bottles and discarded bits of metal, smashed things, lengths of chain and spools of welding wire, there was always an industrial feel and smell. The big dirty city was a violent playground.
The work is my story, it's not just about the paint.
This is Kerry Lord's garage. Have been painting here this summer (2016), watching his amazing garden grow and making friends with the wasps i share the space with. Kerry is a cake designer and a fine guitar player.
All the stuff that makes it go.
A few moments from this summer. The music is Kid DeVille.
Working on Falling yellow & orange crush, summer 2016.
It started by writing, scrawling "I will not disturb the others," about a hundred times. Like being punished in school, standing in front of the black board. I remember the penitent state. Maybe, in a distant way, this one reflects that.
We are all in the garden of good and evil
If you look under current work you can see this one finished, it's called reject. It might have started out as an environmental painting, but then it got personal. Received three rejections this month, thats three solid kicks to the ego. It sort of infected things, then the apex welder popped up and the pity party began. Though I think the painting is solid enough that the average viewer wouldn't get that. Visually I think its sort of poppy and upbeat... like poppy with a british accent.
Paradox, this is the process.
Sprout, evolving.
Red Saxophone, in progress. As a guitar player I’ve been stealing horn lines for as long as i can remember. So maybe this is a little homage to all those pilfered ideas, and it looks like the usual cast of characters is taking time to listen.
Waiting for trouble, from the beginning, spring 2017. The phrase, “I am drawing like a child” kept popping into my head here. Some of my earliest memories are of sitting on the floor of my fathers studio drawing, and watching him paint. There were shelves I could get to, and when he was facing the easel I was alone. Boxes of pastels, crayons, pads, crow quill points & holders, charcoal, pencils, it was all pretty much there. And he’d let me have at it, as long as I shut the hell up, which I did, for hours. Because drawing is an intense experience for a child. It is a trip to wonderland, and I am again, drawing like a child.
The turtle, equipped like a swiss army knife is trying to tell us something. He is coping with environmental challenges, he is trying not to be extinct. It might be good to try to understand him.
This is how Tornado evolved. In the face of turbulent change, our hero maintains his optimism and somehow interjects joy into the process of decay.
Religion... or memories of places, a deer skull, a pilgrimage, 3 ladies in burkas on the move... a cicada wasp with his singular chore. The bottle gets the last laugh.
Always Pretending, from start to finish. My wife thought this one looks like a video game.
Cliff Notes, abbreviated symbolism, in stages
Cliff Notes, 3 details
All the gods lied, process.
Distraction, process
Fireflies & Charlie Soule, process
Short Story, process
Short Stories, Kerry's Garden, process