Park Paintings

I've been painting these small landscapes in NYC Parks recently, mostly in my new neighborhood of Inwood.


"Henry Hudson Bridge" 2009, 24"x 12", oil on canvas




"Henry Hudson Bridge 2" 2009,16"x 20", oil on canvas




"Inwood Fields" 2009, 12"x 24", oil on canvas




"Isham Street" 2009, 12"x26", oil on canvas




"Sweetgum Branches, Doughboy Park" 2009, 24"x14", oil on canvas

Tower of Song (remix)

That's Liam Parry's arm.

"Whosoever unceasingly strives upward... him can we save,"

For



What



Then?

Perfect Vessels

"... Then history began to accelerate; whereas, in the past, man had lived continuously in the same setting, in a society that changed only very slowly, now the moment arrived when he suddenly began to feel history moving beneath his feet, like a rolling sidewalk; the status quo was in motion! All at once being comfortable with the status quo was the same thing as being comfortable with History on the move! Which meant that a person could be both progressive and conformist, conservative and a rebel, at the same time!

When Camus was attacked as a reactionary by Sartre and his bunch, he got off the famous remark about people who had "merely set down their armchair in the direction of History"; Camus was right, but he did not know that the precious chair was on wheels, and that for some time already everyone had been pushing it forward...

It was then that a certain number of Rimbaud's heirs grasped this extraordinary thing: today the only modernism worthy of the name is antimodern modernism."

Milan Kundera, from "Die Weltliteratur"
The New Yorker, Jan. 8, 2007



I made these small (16"x14"x3") sculptures in 2006. They are narrow paintings that open out of a carved piece of wood. A chunk of landscape on the go. All-terrain birds in flight. A vessel to carry memories into the big unknown. An armchair (or desktop) image of the rolling sidewalk.







Receding Vessel
2008
12"x 7"x 8"




"So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past."

Holiday Grotesques

Groundhog Day





Valentine's Day





Easter





Earth Day





Independence Day





Halloween





Veteran's Day






Thanksgiving





Christmas





New Year's Eve

All paintings are 44"x 36", Oil on Canvas

Not at Home

Here's a selection of landscape paintings and sketches done while travelling

Sanibel Island, Gouaches, 2008








Sanibel Island, pastel and ink on paper, 2002, 12"x 18"


"Fishing the Mississippi" 2002, pastel on paper, 12"x18"


"Roscoe Prarie" 2002, Nature Conservancy Preserve (you can see where they took down the barbed wire)


"Culvert, Martha's Vineyard" 1998, pastel on paper, 24"x 36"

Cherry Blossoms

Every Spring I like to paint the Cherry Blossoms in Forest Lawn Cemetery

2005, 32"x24" oil on linen


2006, 24"x12" oil on canvas


2006, 16"x32" oil on canvas


2007 (After the "October Storm") 24"x28" oil on canvas

Buffalo Landscapes

Here's a selection of landscapes painted around Buffalo, NY in the past few years. These first two were done in Chestnut Ridge Park. Painting these from life is a good excuse to hike into the woods and stay in one place for a while. Left: 2006, 84"x12" oil on canvas, Below: 2006, 12"x24" oil on canvas



"Lake Erie" 2006, 34"x50" oil on canvas

The view out my current studio window "Potomac Avenue"2006, 16"x9" oil on canvas


This painting of Silver Maples was the view outside my studio on Essex street.
2005, 17"x17" oil on board


I go to Forest Lawn Cemetery too early for the Cherry Blossoms "Cemetery Birches" 2005, 16"x16"


Westminister Presbyterian, 2006, oil pastel on paper


Forest Lawn Cemetery, 2006, oil pastel on paper


"Sycamore Truncks, Delaware Park" 2006, 13"x17" oil pastel on paper
"Maple with Lichen" 2003, 28"x14" oil on board



These last few pastels are from the yard or porch of 134 Mariner Street, around 2000-2001, 12"x18"