That Was Then, This Is Then

One Summer I was noticing a willow tree, one that I would pass every day on my way to work. What an interesting tree. Willow trees are also quite prevalent in folklore and myths.
I cut a branch and fashioned a loop and hung it on my wall. Not but a day, lightening struck this old tree and split it in half.
The branch stayed pinned to my wall, the leaves turned yellow. I decided to paint it and title it,"That was then, This is then".
In Persian literature, the recognized adjective for 'willow' is lunatic (مجنون), and lover (or lovers' heart).


This painting is 40" x 60", price by request
oil on canvas

Sunny's corner

(sold)











(sold)











(sold)











(sold)

Sunny is a Korean woman who has the most beautiful corner florist stand in NYC.
Her place is 6th st and 2nd Ave. I have been visiting her for 2 years. I bought a nosegay of tulips and lilac in 16 degree weather. My plan was to paint and then give one of the paintings back to Sunny. The painting found it's way to an Argentinean priest. Funny how a day goes.

These are small studies of a nosegay that Sunny fashioned.

Clementines From Spain

all sold

What a beautiful site, a Spanish Clementine, leaves still clinging, as if it were just picked. Found in a New York Grocery. Here is my attempt at trying to paint this fruit in under 10 minutes each. How to grab the color without thinking too much. Just a quick moment, indoors, smell of food on the stove, Berber music in background. Winter.

T

Winter Again

(donated to CenterStage Upcoming Auction)









(sold)







(sold)












(sold)


I seem to have started a tradition with my father and his Black Labrador . At the start of December, we head to the woods in search of the bittersweet vine. Some years our walk yields deer skulls, turtle shells. Our prize, bundles of brightly colored strands of vine, in an otherwise bleak landscape. This then adorns the gallery window. Not unlike past years, I love to sit and paint tiny paintings of this Bittersweet. Small quiet observations, another year has passed.

These are 3 3/4" x 2 1/2" More works in progress

The Color of Interior Silence

I heard someone ask me last evening "what do you paint?" I paused and said "quiet moments". Inside I asked myself "why?" So today as I sit here and reflect. I realize that inside, my interior is everything but silent. A silent war.
More like Nocturne in Black and Gold: The Falling Rocket The only time there is silence is when I am painting.

Like a Moth to a Flame

A theory which has been advanced in an attempt to explain the attraction male moths have for candles specifically is based on olfaction. The spiky infrared spectra of a candle flame happens to contain a number of emission lines which coincide with the vibrational frequencies of the female moth's pheromone. The male moth is thereby powerfully attracted to the flame.

Watching the wood burn, we sat in silence. October seems colder than usual.
(oil on old book cover, $75)(SOLD)

to bring an end to care and worry...

(sold)





















(sold)










(sold)


In the evening with the nights getting colder, leaves changing, I have been reading In the land of Temple Caves.
Reflecting on Paleolithic cave paintings of SW France, time and vestige. This all leads me back to Gustaf Sobin and Luminous Debris-poetic archaeology, a spiritual travelogue through vanished time. Just realizing that in 2005 he passed away,
what was I doing that I missed this?
Fall .
We found ourselves along a country road, a day of picking apples, next to an old graveyard. A vineyard with grapes left to wither on the vine. And what about Dionysus?
and the Roman Bacchus?
The god of wine and madness. "Cult of the souls" and his ability to preside over communication between the living and the dead. and Liber ("the free one") was a god of fertility, wine, and growth.

He pulled at the vine and gave it to me. "For you to paint".