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.
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.
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
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.
After browsing through the chapters, I’m left to wonder if anyone who picked up the book in 1891 found success as they went chapter by chapter and tried to structure a meaningful, successful life.
The thing that I find interesting is how this book reads and seems so much like modern-day self help. It’s all here, published 125 years ago. You can find all of this being self-published on countless blogs or YouTube channels today. I wonder if John T. Dale would have found an audience if he was one of those numbers today?
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.
A few more book paintings recently available through the Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento, California.
Climbing Higher – 30 x 30, oil on canvas. New work featuring vintage primary readers. Available through the Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento, California.
This painting is six feet high by four feet wide – the largest painting I’ve done to date.
The chair once belonged to my mother-in-laws grandfather, and she was kind enough to gift it to me. It was the perfect chair for this commission.
Photo credit goes to Michelle Satterlee from the Elliott Fouts Gallery in Sacramento. And thanks to Gallery Dog Maggie for her outstanding modelling skills. Read more
I like to find obscure books with titles that suggest the subject beyond just a couple of books. Sometimes the suggestion is obvious, sometimes not. I prefer when it’s not as it means the painting can mean any number of things to any viewer. To me they’re akin to haiku poetry – the paintings are to suggest mood and ideas.
I have been painting books for close to a decade. You can see 155+ of those paintings here.
This painting of a Western Electric Co. Rotary Telephone has a bold and easily recognisable silhouette. Read more