“Time is a created thing. To say ‘I don’t have time,’ is like saying, ‘I don’t want to.”
― Lao Tzu
Anything Can Happen
Tagged books
The Interpretation of Dreams
“Books have a unique way of stopping time in a particular moment and saying: Let’s not forget this.”
― Dave Eggers
Sunshine and Rain, After the Sun Sets
Books have always been one of my favourite things to paint. And I think the titles, the actual titles, say just enough. I don’t need to add anything else. They speak for themselves and are up for your own interpretation.
Once you add text to a painting, you’ll immediately look at it differently — words transform the subject.
Underwood Standard Portable Typewriter II
This is the sister painting to the baby blue Royal typewriter in a simple vignette. A red Underwood Standard Portable Typewriter to be featured in my October 2017 solo exhibition at the George Billis Gallery in New York City.
This is another painting that left me very pleased with the outcome. It’s the culmination of years of work and dedication.
Royal Quiet De Luxe I
This is hands down my favourite painting that I have done in the past few years. It’s a Royal Quiet De Luxe typewriter in a simple vignette. It feels good when a painting comes together in all the right places.
This will be one of 18 new paintings showing at the George Billis Gallery in New York City from the beginning of October through to the beginning of November.
This is the culmination of plenty of work and focus. I painted all throughout the summer months and a huge sense of relief and accomplishment has come over me. I have kept busy boxing up and shipping the paintings, but also stepping back from an intense period of painting and now I’m gearing up for the fall months spent following the momentum I built up this past summer.
Electric Fan & Red Books
This painting is at the George Billis Gallery in New York. It’s another in a series of paintings I have been doing by revisiting my portfolio and applying a new technique to subjects I have painted in the past 17 years.
The first time I painted a fan, I had a quick technique and was finished the painting in a few hours.
I think being a young father with a 2-year-old son and a 3-month-old daughter may have had something to do with how little time I had to paint. We had also just moved in to a new house that needed major work and I had a job at a university.
I have distinct memories of feeling this crunch of getting a painting done, racing to the finish line, before my son woke up from a nap. I also painted in the evenings for several years, tired and beleaguered.
I am completely on the other side now. Teenaged kids who require no nap times and they occupy themselves marvellously. I left my job and paint full time in a house that needs no work. Goals achieved. I have the next several decades (hopefully) to paint uninterrupted.
Three New Paintings
Here’s a look at three new paintings off on a plane ride to a collector in Singapore.
Piles of Books
I recently came across a Japanese word that I thought was a good descriptor for this small series of paintings I recently did.
Tsundoku: (n) the act of buying a book and leaving it unread, often piled together with other unread books
I currently suffer a mild case of this tsundoku phenomenon, but I suspect as I get older I’ll find ambitious piles of books growing around me. My wife encourages this.
Smith-Corona
A Smith-Corona typewriter. Recently completed and now comfortably inspiring a new collector in New Jersey.
Several years ago I started painting a series of typewriter vignettes. Recently looking for inspiration, I found that revisiting my own paintings as a place to learn and grow from.
You can check out all of my typewriter paintings to date on Flickr → click on this link.
Eight Penguin Classics
Many of these Penguin Classics are the books that you should have read when you were in your teens, but probably wouldn’t have understood fully until you were in your thirties. It is available through the Elliott Fouts Gallery.
Giving these books a try early on in life is good but I have personally found that revisiting them later makes them way more relevant. These books are written by people who had a full spectrum of experiences and knowledge and I am only now finding that I understand where they come from. Read more
The Way To Win
I found this book, The Way To Win, and had to add it to my little late 19th Century library of books that reveal the way our people were thinking just over 100 years ago. The book is a very detailed, very long self-help style book from a John T. Dale.
These paintings are available at the Elliott Fouts Gallery. Read more
HB #2 Pencils & Nineteen Eighty-Four
I’ve done a few more studies, although one could be seen as more of a reach back to around a decade ago when pencils seemed to figure frequently in my paintings.
These paintings will be included in the small works December exhibition at the Elliott Fouts Gallery.
I found a bunch of Penguin Classics that I’ll be featuring in some upcoming paintings — this painting is the first study.
Nineteen Eighty-Four is one of my favourite books. Although it is fascinating, I actually don’t fear that the world depicted in it is the one we live in. It’s more like the one we are afraid we live in, and the truth is we actually live in a Brave New World which seems equally as terrifying.