Omnia Mutantur, nil interit

Thinking about Manet all this week, with the scent of peonies, brought to me by one of my oldest friends.
The brief peony was the full bloom of a rose to Manet. "And rose she lived the time of a rose, the space of one morning". I think of Manet's Last Flowers, roughly 20 paintings in all. The last one completed barely two months before his death. He said that an artist can say everything he has to say with "flowers, fruit, and clouds." I am sitting here painting these flowers, of which this blossom whose days of beauty are numbered, as it is with my own life.
sold

These paintings are 40:13 & 14 and are $40 each to the first response.

Small Town (Both Sold)

Every day I go to see Sue. She has a little chocolate shop.
I see her from the window, dipping fruits and truffles.
Right before the downpour, I asked her to dip a strawberry
for me to paint. Some days are so simple and lovely.

This is 40:11 &12
"40: Painting My Way Through The Year"

These are $40 each to the first person.

40:12 (bite, sold)

Yet June

(sold)

Oil on cradled maple panel
3" x 5", $65

Not Even Yet June (sold)

I have a quiet discourse. It starts always with "when is my life going to begin?". Just as this conversation began in my head I picked up this flattened butterfly. "Not even yet June."
And then I thought again of David Foster Wallace and I repeated....
"This is water, this is water"

This is then , 40:10 and as part of "40: Painting My Way Through the Year" project, it is $40 to the first response.

Shard From Palatine Hill

I wanted something of Augustus. Walking Palatine Hill my eyes were going everywhere, I wanted to find something. I knew it was possible. The dirt used for the path was reused from the excavations. "look for unusual shapes" and there it was. This shard, this fragment. I slipped into my pocket. I laughed to myself, knowing it was Delft or certainly 19th century. No matter, it shared a time in that area and resurfaced to be reclaimed by me.
Rome has its origins on the Palatine. Indeed, recent excavations show that people have lived there since approximately 1000 BC.

This painting is 40:9 and is $40 to the first response.

View from Christopher Street Pier, Hudson River waterfront, New York City
It is summer when I can feel the grass under me at this west side pier. From here I can see the Statue of Liberty. The heat and the haze in the distance. I never considered painting such recognizable places until I started really looking. After hours of observation, one can begin to see the green patina that glimmers in just the right light in late afternoon. The limp flag on a day when the air is heavy. I come here again and again, each sitting a challenge to get my mind to just see the light.

If you are interested in this series, the paintings are around 4" x 4", oil on maple, $150 each

Fly Fishing In My Mind....


























I have been holding onto this Fly Fishing kit, that appears to be from the Turn of the Century. Today,I felt like I could see. So I started painting these lures, from New York and Scotland. Modern fly fishing is normally said to have originated on the fast, rocky rivers of Scotland and Northern England. A place that my ancestors came from.

Many credit the first recorded use of an artificial fly to the Roman Claudius Aelianus near the end of the 2nd century. He described the practice of Macedonian anglers on the Astraeus River:

...they have planned a snare for the fish, and get the better of them by their fisherman's craft. . . . They fasten red . . . wool round a hook, and fit on to the wool two feathers which grow under a cock's wattles, and which in colour are like wax. Their rod is six feet long, and their line is the same length. Then they throw their snare, and the fish, attracted and maddened by the colour, comes straight at it, thinking from the pretty sight to gain a dainty mouthful; when, however, it opens its jaws, it is caught by the hook, and enjoys a bitter repast, a captive.

This is 40:4 -40:8, each painting is $40 to the first response.
40:8 (bottom right, sold)

Tumbled

The Sea of Galilee is known for its sudden storms, which are caused by moderate easterly or westerly winds. Just as I got into the water, sometime around 3 pm, the winds would start to cause the calm water, to become impossible to swim in. I sat on the edge and listened to the stones tumble onto the shore. The warm sun heading over the mountains beyond Tiberias. The once multi colored brown stones, have become bleached white.
Have you ever tried to hold a moment?
This is 40:3
40:3 is up for sale for $40

"Wishing"

I have always made connections even when none existed. "Wishing" is a series of paintings of the wishbone from long past dinners, prepared for my significant other, painted on old Vanity Fair "Spy" illustrations.
Each issue of Vanity Fair at the time contained a full page color lithographic portrait of a well known sovereign, statesman or man of the day, caricatured in a uniquely good-natured manner which became famous as the 'Vanity Fair Style'. Working under the pseudonyms of 'Spy' (Sir Leslie Ward, 1851-1922) .

Wishing on and always contemplating my personal affairs. More paintings to come.

Borders

Last summer I was fortunate to join the Zinman Institute of Archaeology on their 9th season of excavations at Sussita/Hippos
http://hippos.haifa.ac.il/
Hippos was built on a flat-topped foothill of the Golan Plateau 350 meters above sea level and 2 kilometers east of the Sea of Galilee, near modernKibbutz Ein Gev. The site is just on the Israeli side of the 1949 UN-demarcated border between Syria and Israel.
Since my travel to Israel, I have spent more time researching the history of this area as well as the current political climate.

Barbed wire began to be widely used as an implement of war during World War I. Wire was placed either to keep a soldier confined or impede his movement forward. The human body moving against barbed wire can result in moderate to severe injuries to the skin.
I brought home a piece of barbed wire and began a series of paintings. I plan to hang these panels in a space, enclosing the room at mid length with the "barb wire". The paintings a quiet observation, reflecting on the object having been cut, it's purpose no longer needed.

40:2 "bones of a beautiful day" (Sold)

This is a painting of bones from vial given to me by a really interesting woman that works at the Natural History Museum at Harvard. It is a rodent of some sort. And the vial is labeled "Anna" which always makes me laugh. It was such an amazing day. I saw a 10 ft fossil track that scientists have no idea what kind of creature made it. I got to see Blaschka Glass Models and hundreds of 19th century Taxidermy.

So this is 40:2
40:2 is for sale for $40 to the first response.

40:1

Hello Everyone,
There was such a response to the "40" painting project , and even more incoming requests from friends that wanted to participate, that I have decided to work on more paintings over the course of my 40th year.
The paintings will be of objects that deal with the evidence of the passage of time. Such as a Roman earring, a tumbled stone from the Sea of Galilee,a wilted flower. I will periodically post an image and it will go to the first person that responds for $40.
Hope you will enjoy seeing the work.

This is the first painting up for sale. 40:1
This butterfly made it here tucked away in my checkbook, that still bares my old name, evidence of my laziness. 40:1 is available to the first person for $40.