Silver Current

If you haven’t already, I highly suggest you venture to downtown New Bedford to experience the site-specific installation Silver Current now hovering over Custom House Square. Conceived and created by artist Patrick Shearn and his collective team Poetic Kinetics, this temporary (July - September) artwork is breathtaking and inspiring. Fashioned from ultralight metallized film and netting and resembling schools of fish following even the slightest change in (wind) current. What immediately struck me was the sound and I found myself closing my eyes and laying back on the lawn. It was meditative and soothing, like waves hitting the beach.

The larger story of this work is that it’s the inaugural event of DATMA, the Massachusetts Design Art and Technology Institute, a “museum without walls” that takes it’s inspiration from Mass MoCA in North Adams, MA. I am looking forward to more contemporary art presence in New Bedford and the cultural renaissance that it hopefully portends.

Down on Main Street

Town centers draw me in, no doubt about it. Some of it is nostalgic, I suppose. I grew up at a time in a small town when all the local businesses were clustered in the center and it was normal for a six year old to ride down there on his bike to get air in the tire at the gas station, buy some new fishing hooks from the hardware store and get a donut hole or two from the coffee shop. It may sound like Mayberry, but it was typical of the 60’s. And I think it’s coming back as malls die and Amazon grows. There is still an inherent need for people to be social and gather in a common place.

But some of my interest is also because of the visual variety, especially in the architecture. If you look carefully, you can often trace the entire history of a place by the buildings on Main Street. Sometimes you have to peel back facades and signage, but the bones are usually right there waiting to be painted.

Straße der Skulpturen

In the spring of 1975, I was fortunate enough to join a Student Exchange program sponsored by the Goethe Institute and spend some months in (then) West Germany. I was paired with a German student, Frank Schmidt , and his family and lived with them in a small town outside of Sankt Wendel. I was about to graduate from high school and had been accepted into art school, commencing in the fall, so I was quite excited to explore the art of the region I would be living in.

One of the most memorable places I visited was a large scale public art venue, the Straße der Skulpturen, located on a country road just outside of the city of Sankt Wendel. In 1971 the sculptor Leo Kornbrust initiated this project, creating a landscape populated by huge stone and concrete sculptures. It was like nothing else I had ever seen and though the contemporary work was less than thrilling to my hosts, they put up with me and brought me back there two or three times during my stay to explore and sketch.

Layers

I’ve been thinking a lot about layers recently.

If you visualize our “selves” as a collection of layers, like a tall stack of pancakes, or (if you are of a certain age) a stack of vinyl LPs on the spindle of a turntable, over time we accumulate a lot of layers. Not only in years, but in experiences, professions, partners, belief systems, and so on and on… And in the end, others only see the stack as a whole. The individual layers are often hidden.

I think of that sometimes as I’m slapping on new layers of paint. Some are light and barely noticeable at first. Maybe a soft glaze to take the edge off a horizon, or a more substantial reworking of the overall composition. And then there are the bold slashes of color that catastrophically change the direction of the painting altogether. But, in the end, the viewer is aware of only the finished piece.

Morning Shift

One advantage to self-employment is the flexibility to make your own hours. So, after many years of painting in the evening after my day job, I’ve decided to try a new pattern and work in the early morning. In theory, my brain should be sharper and rested and at optimal capacity….if only my body can stretch and keep up! The first day was today and so far, so good. The stillness is invigorating and the air feels new. The light changes quickly with the studio facing northeast, but I don’t often paint from life anymore, so it really doesn’t matter. I even eschewed my coffee until after as a reward. If I can discipline myself to continue this, I have high hopes for where it leads.

Take Me to the River

I grew up on a river - the mighty Nunketesett (known by most as the “Town River”) in West Bridgewater, MA. So I guess it’s not surprising that no matter where I travel, I’m drawn to the waterways that have nurtured most major cities. The painting above is of my home town river as it passes under the stone arches of…wait for it….Arch St.

I remember my excitement when I first experienced the Mississippi - first in Minneapolis, then Memphis and finally New Orleans. Same river, much different personalities as it grows and empties into the Gulf. And, it took me three trips to even realize that Denver sits on the Platte because it’s so tucked away in the urban spread.

As a painter, rivers offer me a wide palette and assortment of action. From dark cerulean to golden ochre, peaceful trickle to manic rush, when I walk along a riverbank, I usually can find a setting that fits my frame of mind. There’s also the industrial aspect of some rivers that fits nicely into my love of early manufactory buildings. The Saco River in Maine presented itself to me as a tired blue collar laborer, meandering between the red brick on its way home to the Atlantic.

Running water, wandering thoughts…

Summer Studio Prep

Cleaning my studio is not a chore for me. No matter how organized I think I am, in the act of picking up I invariably find a brush I thought I’d lost, a sketch that was “mis-filed” or a half-eaten cruller. It also becomes a time of rediscovery - an old postcard unearthed that you didn’t even know you kept or a library book that was not returned on time (sorry, Ms. Brennan!) At any rate, I really like doing it. To have one’s materials, tools, references and inspirational objects (read: assorted crap) at the ready is a wonderful feeling. And it frees me up for the real work when I walk into the studio.

The approach. The most difficult confrontation is facing a blank canvas. I prefer a full frontal assault.