Reoccurring themes in my work.

Boats, chairs, vehicles, looking in windows, fruit and fishing lures. All common subjects in my paintings and original digital prints. I've done many chairs over the years.

Chairs

I can remember when I was first drawn to chairs. I had a really bad hangover and was working in the stat room at Joy Street Studio. My building was across the street. There was a infamous character living in my building named Prescott Townsend. He was a million years old and looked like Gandolf from the Hobbit. Remember I had a bad headache. There was a courtyard the housed several small carriage houses . Very picturesque. There was an old folding wooden chair next to the entrance to the courtyard. Townsend sat in it weary from the climb up Beacon Hill. He sat in the chair for a while then went on his way up Joy Street on his tiptoes. Frank the owner of the studio told me the story of this million year old man. That chair was there for a couple of more days. Every time I saw it I saw Gandolf. There is then lingering mystery about the chair even to this day, I don't know why. Mostly I paint chasers in pairs. I like mismatched chairs but not always. I like them old. I look at the paintings and I see all the people real and imagined who sat in those chairs. I hear all their stories. Maybe I'm a sap but I like that.

Boats... I like boats

Boats are the perfect vehicle for exploring light, reflection, form, color, mood, sky and on endlessly. It's the perfect subject for representational work. Many of my boats are original digital pieces. Modeled in CG and skinned in Photoshop.

I grew up close to the coast in northeastern Massachusetts. There were boats everywhere. On the river, on lakes and in the harbors.  My folks weren't boat people but i sure liked looking at them and developed sort of a love for what they were. We went mackerel and flounder fishing often in the summer on colorful party fishing boats out of Plum Island and Seabrook. I loved it I loved the boats and loved the fishing, it was grand. I especially loved the old dories and rowing boats. It was a beautiful place to learn to see.
I use boat paintings to experiment with simple forms and techniques. A lot of my boat painting come from my head and are draw with the aid of CG. Sometimes I think I'm overdoing the boat thing but I really do like painting boats. 
Of course with boats go waters. Painting water is real fun. Sometimes like reflecting glass, sometimes like a drippy window. It always seems to translate. One day its flat the next like orange peel and another all fury and the grandest spectacle. A one magnificent and beautiful and simultaneously on on the most dangerous forces on earth. Theres endless material in water be it stream pond or the sea.

One great thing about boat paintings... people like them and sometimes even buy them. 

Windows

No I'm not a peeping Tom. I just find the geometry and proportion of old window to be fun. Add faded, peeling paint, rotting putty, exposed glazing point, stuff inside behind dirty glass and abstract reflections. Oh and see through the building through another window. What can be better.  What the hell is in there?

Fishing stuff

Some of these themes have cross over. Lures in windows. In this theme forget the other devices. It all started with fishing.
The fly prints are a continuing project started in the late 1990s I have Strata 3D models of all the flies shown and more. Most are patterns that I once tied. I was an avid fly fisherman. A broken knee has slowed that down. I am stall an avid fishing tool nut.

When I think about it most of my boats are fishing machines. There's a common thread there.