breath into water

Hot thick air and silent Main St. outside the door; ashes and droplets of Mars black stain and seep into the 100-year-old wood, like sweat, like breath into water.  You're with me here.  You always have been.  I found the personal and through it discovered the universal.  So these paintings are your poems and stories and struggles and hopes.  They belong to us all, and perhaps least to me once the paint dries.

I don't remember the struggles aside from they happened is all.  This time is fleeting and immediate and I am only passing through it like the cities and towns I've passed through my whole life.  I once told a lover that leaving is simply what I do; no less love, only the constant longing to wander beyond and through and on and on and on.  That's in the paintings now.  That's in the blackness and shadow.  The paint on my shoes keeps my feet on the ground, constant and steadfast.  I can put that longing someplace physical and go back home.

I moved into this space and started a blog about the journey from obscurity.  I always said if I found the answers I would share them for free, but now I don't know.  My willingness hasn't changed, it's just that I don't think anyone would listen.  If I told you it was easy, you would dismiss it.  If I told you it involved pain and personal sacrifice, you'd ask if there were another way.  There's not; either way, that is, another way.

I wanted to row out to the vastness and the unknown where it's dark and desolate and sky meets sea and somehow find something beyond, and then somehow -inexplicably, find my way back.  Only then could I give it away.  Maybe I'm close now, but whether I'm returning or continuing to row out doesn't seem to matter much any more.

There's a stillness to the studio when I'm about to begin a painting.  Sensual and slow and steeped in loss of self.  Things become enhanced, that's the only way to describe it.  So much of it is labor; the building and the priming and the base coats over and over.  Divine labor, heroic at times, but labor nonetheless.  Then that first mark.  Paint on surface and choice and negation and choice and option and over and over and it is forged and carved out of the nothingness.

dreams may come

I received notification of my first museum show, which will open in January of 2014.  As I have yet to sign the contract, I will hold back the museum's name, but it is a regional art museum in SC.  This came at one of those moments when the world seemed black and despair was taking hold of me in a profound way.  The road is long.  It's not for the faint at heart and even the strong face down the demons of doubt and hopelessness from time to time.

The art world is not a meritocracy.  You don't get points for talent or even effort, and my trips to NYC have shown me that bullshit hangs on walls with red dots next it just as often (seemingly more so) than the kick-ass work that belongs there.  There are countless painters out there that are amazing who will never see "success" on any grand scale.  It gets demoralizing if one lets it.

For my part, I have stayed my course.  I've worked alone and in obscurity for a very long time.  At one point or another every friend or family member in my life has politely discouraged me from continuing along this path; for my own good, of course.  I appreciate it.  We don't like to see people we love in pain, struggling toward a seemingly unattainable goal.  But I have always believed in myself absolutely.  Even in my lowest, I have never given up on my work.  I've always found a way.

On the day my daughters were born I made a promise to myself.  It was one of those silent oaths we take in this life that is strictly between ourselves and our Source; that I would stay the course and prove to them by example that they can achieve their dreams.  They don't come easy.  They may even come at great cost, but they can be reached if they supremely believe in themselves and never let anyone (even those closest to them) discourage them.  So when I walk into that museum next year with my daughters by my side, I will feel that I have fulfilled a sacred oath and that I have done something as a father that is meaningful and lasting.

As I've told my painter friends over many beers and tears, I have only ever sought greatness.  Longevity, not fame, is what is important to me.  I want to be a great painter, even if my audience is yet unborn.  I value that more than all glossy magazine covers and art fair headlining that may or may never come.

This is a moment.

And tonight I will go back into the studio, roll up my sleeves, and do the work.

imitations of drowning

untitled, ink on arches paper, 22" x 30", august 2013, Rico

Black gesso.  Black fingers, arms, and washing out the big brush under the Main St. streetlamp hunched spigot.  At the door and I remembered the arches paper, ink, time, turnaround make one, make two, make three.  

And drawing, mark-making, doesn't have to be obviously related, or good, or for anyone.  It's a way of thinking about things; form, materials, flow, movement.  

untitled, ink on arches paper, 22" x 30", august 2013, Rico

Fluidity.  Suspension.  Falling?  Imitations of drowning.    

There are new thoughts, but I'm working through the large canvas on the wall, already titled in my mind...some come like that.  The day washes away into work and hands and sweat of labor.  Painting is wrestling angels, either way there's loss but then again those moments; those moments when one really sees.  

This meandering stream-of-consciousness thought flow ends now.   A beer and Breaking Bad and to bed; and I'm very mortal once more.

Exhibition announcement

Kimono, oil on canvas, 48" x 60", Rico '13

My work will be included in a group exhibition at Presbyterian College's Elizabeth Stone Harper Gallery this Fall, entitled Abstract.  The show opens September 12th and runs through November 29th.  There will be an opening reception on the 12th.  The show has not been promoted to any real extent; partly due to the fact that the College cut the Director's position to third time.  It is a terrific gallery space, and though I do not yet know with whom I will be sharing the walls I'm excited to be showing in my "home town."  

If you've seen my work in Greenville, please make the short trip down.  If you attended ArtFields, you saw my work in the HUB space, and another large work will be exhibited in this show along with 3 works the size of the one above.  

I'll be switching out the current piece at Art & Light Gallery for this one, and I'm excited to have Kimono seen publicly.  It's a pivotal piece in this body of work; an important one for potential collectors.

If you're reading this blog and live within a few hours, I hope to see you next month.