design domain

Sculpture and painting

I have been painting and carving for as long as I can remember, although carving took a long hiatus after I tried to take my eye out with a wood chisel when I was 12. I still have a scar on my eyelid from the sewing it took to close the wound.

The paintings are oil on canvas. I like to work on large canvases and with large brushes. I try to work quickly and keep the brush strokes loose.

The paintings and stone carvings are not shown in any relationship to each other as regards size or scale.

Stone carvings are executed in a variety of materials, soapstone and alabaster being the two I prefer. Harder stone requires power tools and I don't like the noise or dust. The hammer and chisel also gives a nicer line than an angle grinder.

The stone carvings take a long time to finish, if they don't break first.

"Mea Culpa", alabaster, approximately 8" x 12" x 6"

This little old Satyr is reaching advanced middle age after a life of saturnalia, Bacchanalia, debauchery and licentiousness and is beginning to feel remorse. He accepts blame for his actions and begs forgiveness.

"Mea Culpa" photography courtesy of Richard "Tiger" Melville.

"Pocahontas", soapstone, approximately 30" x 36" x 12"

This carving represents the collision between the Powhatan Confederacy and English at Jamestown. Contrary to the Disneyfied myth, in which Pocahontas is a twenty six year old dressed like Wilma Flintstone, she was around twelve years old when she met or was in love with John Smith, who was around twenty eight.

There is much written about this episode but I distrust it all, there is too much altruistic saintliness in Pocahontas' decision making on a very adult level. She would have had to have been precocious.

Not that young women are not capable of highly adult actions beyond their years, as evidenced by the creation of France by fifteen year old Jehanne d'Arc

In the carving Pocahontas is brought to her knees by the lion, which represents England. The incident is her kidnapping.

The carving also is intended to be a protest of the way women are treated in general.

The sculptural forms are intended to take inspiration from Heraldry and Anime.

"Pocahontas" is in progress.

"Spirit Bear", alabaster paperweight, approximately 6" x 6" x 2"

A dancing orange Spirit Bear.

"Bison", soapstone, approximately 15" x 12" x 5"

A bull bison digging in to prepare a charge.

Boxing Day, oil on canvas, triptych, 62" x 42.25"

Portrait as finished as its going to get. Check out the guitar-shaped scar.

"Jennifer"

Ilford B&W, Nikon F3.

Tattooed Lady, oil on canvas, 63" x 14"

Photos and painting from the same photo session of a friend. The nudity is, of course, faux. The inspirational model was clothed in summer fashion.

"No Punk Isn't Dead", oil on canvas, 29" x 66"

This is a large graffiti inspired canvas of a young guitarist.

"Evergreens", oil on canvas, 86" x 68"

This is a large landscape. A view through the trees to distant mountains.The sun breaking from between a mountain and a tree.

"The Beastly Racist", oil on canvas, 41" x 70"

The Beastly Racist (Burns in Hell). "I am the way into the Doleful City, I am the way into Eternal Grief, I am the way to a forsaken Race... Abandon every Hope, all you who enter."

"Mt. Yamnuska", oil on canvas, 64" x 69"

Renamed. Approaching the crag and seeing the climbs, knowing that you find nothing there other than yourself.

"Puddle", oil on canvas, 64" x 64"

This is a rainy, nighttime forest landscape as seen reflected in a puddle on the forest floor.

"Fear", oil on canvas, 64" x 55"

This painting is about climbing and the fear of heights.

"The Lovers", oil on canvas, two 63" x 14" panels, overall size 63" x 28"

This painting is an homage to Man Ray's "The Lovers" in the basic concept of a pair of lips floating surrealistically over a landscape.

I liked the sensuousness of the way the lips formed to each others contours.

The painting is owned by a resident of Hamburg, Germany, and close personal friend.

"9-10", 28" x 63" Oil on canvas.

"Bone" 14" X 63" Oil on canvas.