AROUND THE CHECKERED TABLE CLOTH

This Texas roadside café scene is no longer as ubiquitous as it was only a few years ago. The spreading broad-brimmed straw hats worn by working men and tractor drivers have also diminished in number, replaced by various long-billed baseball caps. Why should these harmless, innocuous changes in head gear bother me? They are not threatening, nor demanding of any great social change or revolutionary thought. Perhaps, they have something in common with drastic changes in say, a military uniform, which also is not usually a threat. Perhaps, a link is related to the newness of a uniform. Ubiquity of clothing is in some way a form of language, or speech, or even a certain accent. The actor dressed in costume more naturally takes on his prescribed character. Appearance is a major part of drama and not only on the stage.

HARVEST OF THE SEA

The rolling away of darkness from before light on the open water is a glorious metaphor for the Creation. A great curtain is raised up by the sun and beneath are the light, the wind, and the water. Creation yawns away the dawn and earth, sea and heaven embrace. This painting is two views: one side shows ocean, shrimp boats, sky, lamp and sea; the other side shows the fisherman standing over the shrimp. The way our eyes see it in life, is refocusing a vision away from the elements of the entire scene, to the narrower plane of the fisherman focusing on his shrimp catch. This cubistic trick is in real life what we do a lot when scanning scenes. We focus on a whole space and then refocus on parts of the scene. Our vision is a tremendous gift, allowing our mind to work like a zoom lens hopping around near and far, high and wide, up and down, without confusion or turning any knobs. This gift is the source of how our memory works. Otherwise, we would only remember events in terms of rolls of single pictures instead of emotionally-charged memories.  The size of Harvest of the Sea is a “golden section rectangle”, a square with one half of its measurement added on – a square and one half, making the “golden section”, such as a 3”X 5” index card. It is known as a “harmonious proportion” from ancient times. Architects, carpenters, builders, and painters have used it. It is said to have originated in ancient Egypt and is a fascinating and mathematically endless study used in building and furniture by Egyptians, Greeks, and Romans.

He Rolleth Away light from before dark and dark from before light

Depicting a sailor standing on a boat facing away from viewer, just to right of center, amidst a sea of boats on a blue-green-yellow sea, the paint applied in short, choppy brushstrokes.

HORSES BY MOONLIGHT

Late at night in a Brenham farm field- two Palomino horses are in the lower part of the painting in front a of a large leafy tree. In the far back of the field, a solitary black horse is silhouetted in front of a bright patch of moonlight. Sky, field, tree, and horses are suffused in bright moonlight. The scene, as I remember it, was of a spectacular stillness ablaze in colors of the night.

Canna lillies in a painted pitcher

Depicting a bulbous-form white pitcher with rust-red painted rim and floral pattern, containing a spray of orange cannas, on a blue table drape underneath swagged blue curtains against a dark interior.

Lillies

Depicting four white lillies in a garden scene with green background and blue sky

one man, two children, and a dog

Orem lipsum unum

RENEWAL - BECKY AND JOSHUA

Depicting the artist's wife, Becky, in her denim hat is in the couple's flower garden, and their son, Joshua, as an infant, reaching toward a black-winged butterfly

Texaco truck on a hot day

These long, large gasoline-carrying trucks are an intimidating presence on the highway, especially in the bright sunlight or rain. Their long, round trailers and large cabs barrel down the road like short trains weaving through traffic. In the rain they seem to de-materialize as I look at them bearing down towards me. Each patch of water on window and windshield holds a piece of them and all the stable forms of things seem to be melting down. It is a colorful but distracting scene. All shapes and forms are on the move. There are no distinct lines that hold their form in the wetness. In a sense we are traveling under water like a fish. Drive carefully.

WOMAN IN GREEN SHAWL (WAITING FOR BUS)

This solitary woman had a monumental presence sitting stone-like in a brilliant green shawl of loosely woven thread. I saw her like this as soon as I walked into the old Kingsville bus station on Henrietta Avenue, east of Sixth Street. I studied her out of the corner of my eye as I did my errand and then gave her a full glance on my way out. That was all I needed. There are some works that materialize quickly, with little time between witnessing and execution. They paint themselves out of my hand with little trouble, almost as if I had transported them from the scene and placed them on the canvas. Such paintings, which are as successful as I feel this one is, do not usually come so quickly.

 Her large, almost bug-like green body forms a great arch framed inside the yellow square window behind her. An earth colored background surrounds the yellow square. Her folded hands in her lap are set off with gold tinged colors. Her head, framed in green with the same golden tinge as her hands, rests atop the arch of her body as a smaller rock upon a larger one, but her eyes and mouth see us perhaps even more than we see her.