Austin Bus

Austin Bus was done outside of class during my undergraduate years at the University of Texas, Austin. I had a studio class I particularly disliked so I took the afternoon off. Yet, whenever I cut an art class, I would nevertheless spend the time on art. So I took my sketchbook and got on a city bus. When I found an interesting stop, I planned to get off and do some drawings. However, this time I never got off. Nothing I saw interested me. Finally my bus returned to the very place where I boarded it. I got off and as I walked in front of the bus to cross the street, I looked up and into the front of the bus. Through the dark blue windshield, I saw the people moving. Their colors changed as they moved front to back, the indoor light catching details revealing a cheek, a hat, and the shadows hiding them too. It was like peering into a living kaleidoscope, full of people made of stained glass. Outside, where I stood, it was sunny: a different world, hot and real. This was the beginning of my fascination with the simultaneous experience of a cool indoor space from a hot outside space: an experience somewhat akin to looking into clear water and seeing fish and reflections of sunlight. read more

Cow and Calf

A mother and child of the animal kingdom. The domestic animals have an inescapable affinity with us humans. We can see this by watching them in the field with their young. The heads of the elder cows and bulls caress the calves as they burrow under the chins of their elders. These and other gestures of watchfulness and affection imitate our human family. We have somehow a common ancestry.

Torah Reading (from bar mitzvah series)

The central point of the Sabbath service is the reading of the Torah. Occurring after the high moment of its removal from its resting place inside the Ark and its slow procession amidst the congregation, the Torah comes to rest upon the reading table (bima). The bar mitzvah (who is thirteen) reads part of that week’s portion. The bar mitzvah ritual consists of chanting and reading a Sabbath service. read more

Turning (Teshuvah, Hebrew for Repentance)

Reaching the end of his field, the farmer turns his machinery to return it to its task. One may contemplate this farm life painting for nothing else but its color, its composition, and their relation to its subject.

But the Hebrew metaphor for repentance, “teshuvah” means to complete a cycle, to “return,” and by analogy to turn from one’s wrong direction and go back, return to our Father, to a righteous life. In scripture, moral teaching is couched not in the definitions of philosophers but in stories and metaphors drawn from the real lives of everyday people: farmers, herdsmen, and artisans. The observation of daily events and ordinary acts to teach profound lessons develops out of Biblical tradition.  read more

Viejos in the Park

This was a painting that I deliberately went looking for. I wanted to do a painting like the painters of earlier centuries, figurative work wherein real people sat and posed. Only a few blocks away from where we lived, there was a gas station. It had been there many years on Sixth Street and I noticed old men hung around there to visit. Its unique feature was a circular concrete umbrella that shaded the gas pumping area. I had patronized it often. When I was growing up, filling stations were sometimes small scale socializing places, especially if they sold some groceries, sodas, and tobacco. They were the most informal places perhaps in the world and made no demands on their clientele’s dress or social status. read more