Living Large

One of the things I love most about being an artist is the freedom to explore new ideas, experiment with materials and constantly push myself creatively. Lately I've had the urge to get back into my first love–painting. Abstract backgrounds are a key part of my mixed media work so I thought why not take my distinctive urban look to the next level. I also decided these new abstract pieces needed to make a statement...they just screamed to be big.

Inspired by urban graffiti, the patinated walls of abandoned buildings and even my paint-splattered studio floor, these paintings on unstretched canvas measure approximately 39 x 61 inches (with an additional 2" border all around so they can hang as-is or they can be professionally stretched). Each piece is created by applying many layers of paint, which I hand distress by sanding, scraping and rubbing, then I paint again. The process is very physical and at times I look like I am playing a solo version of Twister or practicing a particularly torturous method of yoga, but it's worth it...I love the results.

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Beyond Commission Jitters

I admit it – commissions make me nervous. One of my favorite things about creating art is knowing that people emotionally connect with my work. Art is so subjective and collaborating with clients to understand what they want often makes me delve into the unknown. But honestly, tackling the unknown is also what I enjoy most about commissions. 

I love a challenge and with every new project I learn something. It may be a color combination I've never considered or a subject I've never seen. Even if it's a request for a version of an old piece I will see the work in a new way and make it unique.

Last year, for instance, I did restaurant commissions that forced me explore parts of the Presidio and the surrounding neighborhood where I discovered the staggering views from the top of San Francisco's Lyon Street Stairs (popular with sadistic personal trainers) and the impressive art installations of Andy Goldsworthy scattered around the park. One of my favorite requests was for a large piece featuring the McNear brickyard in San Rafael. I had never even heard of the brickyard and when I took a ride over there to check it out I was blown away. Walking through the stacks of bricks, in various sizes and patinated colors, I felt like I had discovered the remains of an ancient city. Beyond cool!

I will always get a little nervous to start a new commission but now it feels more like excited anticipation for something that has become a guilty pleasure – a symbiotic relationship with collectors that gives me an excuse to explore new places and meet new people. And the best part, I know my clients will have a personal connection to the work they helped create.

Get Lost

"A mind that is stretched by a new experience can never go back to its old dimensions." — Oliver Wendall Holmes

A constant swarm of bees and flies found us in South Dakota and Wyoming, feeding off the insect carcasses plastered to the front of the car. It made me miss the concrete urban oasis of Chicago, where we had been a few days before.

I wasn't really looking forward to this part of the cross country trip—I am terrified of bears and I hate outdoor toilets. But after a couple of hundred miles of driving and a speeding ticket from an exceedingly pleasant state trooper, I awoke from a nap to get my first glimpse of the Grand Tetons. Whoa...I wasn't prepared. Really, it's tough to describe their majestic beauty. And it's easy to see why so many people have it on their bucket list. 

Before hitting Jackson Hole we took a 30 mile diversion on a deserted road in search of an elusive petroglyph site, which we never found. And you know what, I didn't care; it was still fun. I've spent a lifetime taking the road less traveled—sometimes accidentally but usually because that's just me. It is one of my strengths and possibly one of my weaknesses. In either case it's a characteristic that definitely carries over into my work.

If there is a message I want to send through art it is to remind people to look up (increasingly rare in our smart phone-dominated lives) and see the world around them. Explore, dare to step out of your comfort zone and see familiar things in a new way. If you are lucky the road less traveled will take you to a bug-infested, dusty dirt road deep in Wyoming where there's no hope of phone reception, and well, you won't care one bit.

Soul Searching in Detroit

"It takes heart to fight for something so many consider a lost cause..." Unknown, graffiti art

The silence was thick as I climbed a graffiti covered water tower on the roof of the former Packard plant. A hazy sun silhouetted a factory in the distance, billowing steam that made the scene very surreal. My guide, a local who had paid off the security guard to let us in, was on another floor and I felt very alone but not scared. In many ways the massive concrete and steel structure felt like a temple—a living example of man's power to create and destroy—simultaneously beautiful and tragic.

Detroit. I could fill this page with purple prose describing terrible blight and the American apocalypse but it's nothing you haven't already heard. And it's true...all of it...there is deep poverty, crime, and decay. There is also tremendous pride and, most important, soul. It's evident in the people who are quick to defend their city or strike up a conversation. You have to be tough to survive in Detroit but at its core the locals are salt-of-the-earth, hard-working people with humble midwestern attitudes.

I visited many more abandoned buildings in Detroit: a library, that briefly served as a soup kitchen; a catholic church in Poletown; the Fisher body plant; and a former high school with amazing art deco details. All of them had been torn apart by scrappers who take anything that might have value, including electrical wiring, plumbing and metal window frames. Despite being gutted these buildings, where generations of residents lived, worked, studied and celebrated, were not stripped of their essence. The buildings may be abandoned but the soul of Detroit lives on there and in the resilient hearts of the locals who call these streets home.