Of course, none of this takes place in a vacuum. No matter the depth or breadth of one’s talent there is always the necessity of making a living and juggling the demands of work and family and life in general. I’ve tried to make the best of my various situations. When I found work in the film industry I discovered a place that was home to many creative misfits. Amazing craftspeople with generally positive attitudes and energy. My talents were valued and utilized and I had endless opportunities to learn from some great painters and illustrators and designers, special effects people, costumers, model-makers and sculptors. I found interesting and challenging work and between shows I could paint in my studio or travel.

    The business is seductive, however, and success builds upon itself and I found myself  employed more and more frequently, offered ever-more creative and interesting opportunities. But as providential and interesting as the work has been I have never felt called to a career in film.

 

    So, to kick start my own art again I enrolled in a MFA program at East Carolina, with a studio art concentration. By this time I also had married and had a child. My life with these two people became a collaboration on many levels. I am in my last semester of the MFA program now. I do feel a river of creativity runs through me and I know that I am blessed with native ability and circumstances and a family that is supportive and encouraging. I do still feel art is a calling. I am trying to obey the call, and juggle the issues of money, work, family time. All the sublime and mundane things.

 

I am fascinated with anonymous aboriginal art and artifacts, and with the work of pre-historic artists and artisans. There are many monumental works of mysterious origin – Stonehenge, the Sphinx, the Easter Island statues - that have endured the ages to inspire and mystify us today. I am also inspired and mystified by smaller art objects and artifacts that were the unsigned works of individuals. I am curious about the universal need and desire to create, express ourselves in some fashion, and to beautify. I believe we have an under-acknowledged need for beauty in our lives, that we suffer without it. Many of these anonymously fashioned objects possess power, beauty and grace in astonishing proportions. I enjoy the study and contemplation of these objects and I like to reflect and meditate upon their origins and their possible significance and meaning to their makers and to us today.

 

There are so many artists I like, starting with the nameless, anonymous ones I mentioned, moving to ones I have known personally and worked with, ending with those historic and contemporary artists I have studied, some with names I know and many with names I have forgotten. The list is endless. I have been influenced by all of them. Even the ones I don’t care for.

 

3.    What is you main source of inspiration?

 

I don’t know that I have a main source, other than the life around me. When my energy is good I might be inspired by almost anything I see or think or feel.

 

I am moved to try and express ideas and emotions in images and pictures. Surges of emotion are often beginning points for paintings. Initially a way to get something out of my system, they become process pieces, and gradually move from the abstract to the concrete.  I like to do the landscapes, drawings from life, and illustrations for some defined purpose or just for practice. I enjoy the movie work. But the process pieces can be really goofy and make me laugh. And some of them I think of as mandalas in that they help me to re-center and lead me, sometimes, to some greater understanding of life. My life anyway. But honestly, I often have no idea what I am saying to myself when I paint those things. I just like to make up pictures.

4.    Why do you like to combine your seven-year old son, Broadus’s ideas and get his involvement in the studio? When did you start to do so? Who does mostly come up with the idea first?

 

            From the time he could crawl Broadus has very naturally involved himself in my studio. I heard once, “the beggar supplicates, the son appropriates.” This applies well to Broadus. He never asked my permission to work alongside me. He just did it. Perhaps because I am an older father (he’s seven and a half, I’m fifty-six) and my values have changed over the years I am more patient and tolerant. I am also very interested in him, what moves him, what catches his eye, what inspires him. Naomi used to tell me that I am the adult, I can see beyond him and I ought to be able to manage and direct him without doing damage to his pride and sense of self, his self-esteem. I am not always that smart, but I try to be.

1.    Where did you learn painting?

 

 

        I am still learning. I have always liked drawing, painting, making things. Some of what I know comes from pushing the medium to see what it can do – and to see what I can do with it. A great deal has come from other artists and technicians, in and out of school and in work situations; people who have introduced me to methods and materials. I have learned a great deal from on-the-job training as a scenic artist and concept artist working in film and television. My education as an artist has been a long, continuing, sketchy process.

        

        Bob Cormier, a prominent Boston portrait artist, was a huge influence; although our personal styles of work are very different. His drills in the fundamentals of seeing, of choosing and mixing color, of finding the drawing in the shapes of the shadows… all this was very useful to me.

I learned from observing him that being an artist is a serious and worthy calling, rich with tradition and meaning; and that while the mastery of technique, of methods and materials is important, it is also important to immerse oneself in one’s culture and history and to try to become a student of human nature.