This Halloween made happier by discovering one of my drawings from my Popol vuh collaboration with the poet Jemshed Khan has been published in The Miserere Review, Dangerous Lullabies edition . This is the second time I have had this honor, sharing the page with Jem especially gratifying as we’ve found getting our epic project to press challenging; that the Miserere Review published a passage is both gratifying and encouraging.
New work “St. Ciaran and Brother Boar” The Irish St. Ciaran’s feast day was last week ( September 9th), I confess I was unfamiliar , my breviary is British and based upon the Anglican saints so I often meet new sainted friends .
Ciarán had a near fairy tale relationship with woodland creatures: “St Ciaran of Ireland (516 AD – 544AD) was converted to the Christian faith by St Patrick and began to preach to the Irish people, who were then mostly pagans. One day, feeling the need for a period of quiet, Ciaran went to a lonely woodland district and started to build himself a cell. Sitting down by a tree, he noticed a fierce looking boar. Ciaran spoke gently to the boar calling him ‘Brother Boar’, as he treated all animals as his brother and sister. The boar realised that Ciaran was a friend and not a foe and so he helped Ciaran to build his cell, tearing down strong branches with his teeth and bringing them to Ciaran. When the cell was finished the boar stayed with Ciaran and soon many other animals joined them, including a wolf, a fox, a badger, a deer and many birds. Ciaran called them all the first brother monks of his little monastery. Later, as people joined them and Ciaran started a larger monastery, he never forgot his animal friends who continued to live with him.”
🌲🦋🦡
It is an enchanting tale ( any story involving boars and badgers has me from the get go ) , with an association with great Horned Gods thrown in, who could resist .
Saint Ciarán and Brother Boar 2024 mixed water based media on illustration board 19 by 15 inchesdetail
I am working on an oil on panel painting The Adolescence of the Green Man currently, another horned woodland dweller (preparatory drawing below) . This my current theme , pulling away from the desolate dystopia of late , returning to verdant solitude .
Detail: The Adolescence of the Green Man, 2024Saint Ciarán and Brother Boar 2024 mixed water based media on illustration board 19 by 15 inches
A new online arts and literary magazine The Miserere Review was recently reviewed and I am very pleased to see one of my paintings Zzyxx Rd. 2024, included in the inaugural edition.
Opening reception of the Brand 52 annual work on paper exhibition, 15th June 2024
I ought to have posted this sooner, but with distractions of the day to day… better late than never.
The Brand Library in Glendale CA ( https://www.brandlibrary.org ) is a treasure house , a library possessing a wealth of knowledge concerning the arts, visual, musical, literary. Annually the library hosts a renowned national juried exhibition devoted exclusively to works on paper, this was the 52nd, and this year juried by the esteemed art critic Shana Nys Dambrot. Apparently this year saw the largest number of artworks submitted, 1,574, and the largest number shown for exhibition, 102. I am honored that my submission, The Xibalba Codex was included…all 68 drawings, skillfully hung.
(I had provided a schematic, which the Brand team followed to the letter, gratitude for that.)
schematic for hanging the 68 drawings of The Xibalba Codex
I am very appreciative of the Brand, Debra Thompson, Brand 52 Chair, the excellent staff at the Brand and especially Shana Nys Dambrot who has over the years supported, exhibited and most importantly , most gratifyingly , understood my work, “getting” the work. Every artist wishes to be understood, Shana’s stamp of approval is validation indeed .
With my dear, most loved friend, Mary Jane Jones, honored she made the opening reception.My friend, fellow artist, Dwora Fried with her assemblage piece included in the Brand 52My friend and fellow visionary Faina Kumpan , her work always a delight.Once again, with Faina and my dear spirit sister , the very talented Jodi Bonassi.
I had never seen all 68 drawings hung at once, sequentially , it was gratifying (if difficult to capture); equally gratifying was the placement of the work, first work upon entering the gallery, honored to have had such a prominent position.
A few shots of the 68 drawings:
Lastly, all the drawings are available for purchase through this Blurb link:
New work : The Adolescence of the Greenman , graphite , watercolor and gouache highlights , 15 by 19”
This is a redrawing of a GreenKnight from 2015 which I felt warranted revisiting .
The Adolescence of the Greenman , 2024, graphite , watercolor and gouache highlights , 15 by 19”
Various new details :
the Greenman’s faun heralds his initial venturing out into the wider world
detail, faun
his sylvan mentor looking on nervously
The wider world broad and distant , inspired ( as so many of my landscapes are ) by a Victorian cork piece that hangs across from my drawing table . I am frequently transported to lands of fancy by this piece of charming folkart .
The symbolic weaving on the horse’s robe predict the Gawain and GreenKnight narrative , the green knight’s beheading, the Queen’s seductive power , the abandoned chapel.
As I mentioned above this is a revisiting of an earlier work also inspired by the Gawain/Green Knight narrative, this one from 2015.
The Green Knight 2015 watercolor on paper 11 by 1 inches
Ultimately this will be a highly finished oil painting on panel , but for now , a finished drawing .
🐞☘️🍄🟫🦔🐛🌳🌱🪵🪺🍄
The Adolescence of the Greenman , 2024, graphite , watercolor and gouache highlights , 15 by 19”
Detail: The Temptation of Christ in the Desert of Lovelessness, 2024
New work : “The Temptation of Christ in the Desert of Lovelessness”, graphite , colored pencil , gouache on toned paper , 18 by 24 inches .
The Temptation of Christ in the Desert of Lovelessness 2024 graphite and gouache on toned paper 18 by 24 inches
In this drawing I’m depicting the forty days Christ spent fasting in the desert . Satan, attempting to break Christ offers the world and her delights ( far background detail ) and confronting the fasting Christ taunts him with a rock , daring him to “tell these stones to turn into loaves “ (Mt 4:3). Christ being the bread and wine of salvation easily turns his back upon such nonsense ( the Eucharist and vine), vanquishing the Tempter . The desert in this drawing is of desolation and death awaiting the promised redemption .
Worldly emptiness, Vanities exposed, the gloss of despair; Christ rejecting such nonsense .Detail , Satan with his rejected temptation.
I have recently completed a new painting, oil on panel, 18 by 24 inches.
6 Weeks in Nothingville 2024 oil on panel 18 by 24 inchesdetail from 6 Weeks in Nothingville
This painting has been on the easel a bit longer than most, in part due to my schedule but also because it is fraught, fraught from fraught inspiration.
Studio shot with 6 Weeks in Nothingville
This fraught inspiration being the fetus, the abortion debate. Life. I will not delve too personally into the abortion debate, suffice to say I am Roman Catholic, Catholic , with the orthodox perspective but also, through personal experiences, aware of the nuance, sensitive to the subtlety of this delicate matter.
That said, possessing this awareness, wary of the many prisms of this hard and sharp stone , I was taken aback by the cold callous attitude of friend, a dinner guest, who when the fraught topic of abortion, the fetus particularly , was (ill-advisedly)raised made an off hand comment that I found unsettling. We were speaking of the fetus, of its being and meaning and to this friend, from the very minute of conception to the very moment of birth, it was in her mind “Nothing”.
In her mind, a “mere blob of cells”.
I confess I was so startled by this shocking statement, its lacking of nuance, empathy, tenderness, that I found myself with tears in my eyes. So fraught is this topic and yet for her to so confidently sweep away all concern, all subtlety, all compassion into the dustbin, into Nothingville, pained me deeply.
My shock passed, the dinner ended convivially enough, yet secretly I was planning this painting…the friendship however has since faded away.
detail: 6 Weeks in Nothingville
As a boy, I was one of those anti-abortion protesters, I was gifted at sign making, my priest was especially proud of my efforts, he made quite the fuss. I glowed from the attention and was fierce in my youthful dedication. Images such as this poster below were particularly inspiring.
I am still moved and inspired. It is all very complicated yet not it seems for my former friend; yet she is incorrect , this no mere blob. That, if nothing else, seems clear to me.
Inspiration image
detail : 6 Weeks in Nothingville
6 Weeks in Nothingville 2024 oil on panel 18 by 24 inches
On 30th January 2021 I read for the first time a new translation of the Quiche Maya Popol vuh by a talented poet Jemshed Khan. The manuscript appeared unexpectedly in my email inbox one morning. As I am a devoted admirer of this great creation myth, I was eager to see how it compared. I soon found this manuscript to be a sensitive translation, that it would arrive so magically, I found enchanting – the old gods seemed at play.
From the first reading it was obvious to me that Khan shared my passion for this great work, weaving his own poetic voice within the tapestry of ancient ancestors. I set about sharpening my pencils to add my own.
The images enclosed our my contribution to this collaboration, a project unfortunately in publishing limbo, but for now, this slim volume must suffice until word at last meets image.
A newly finished painting, still drying on the easel : “Zzyzx Road”, 2024, oil on canvas, 30 by 40 inches .
Zzyzx Rd. 2024 oil on canvas 30 by 40 inches
This latest painting was inspired by our 2022 cross-country move from Los Angeles to Chicago. Just one day out and we found ourselves stuck in LA worthy traffic, idling for hours in an apocalyptic landscape, a tractor trailer aflame at the Zzyzx Road exit ( an exit exactly to where??).
Zzyzx Rd. exit
The truck spewed a noxious pea green smoke.
Truck aflame, Zzyzx Rd.exit, Baker CA July 30th 2022
The intense August desert heat beating down upon our failing rental truck , A/C flickering, our aged pug Viola vulnerable to the hellish environment and outside our window we had just passed giant ice cream cone stands, beautiful old mobile homes left to the elements, a surprising number of erectile dysfunction billboards and most curiously an abandoned sail boat , docked in sand .
It was a moment in time , one of quite a many moments, that inspired our Fleeing Babylon in the first place . When traffic did begin to move along on, that other great Babylon , LasVegas loomed ahead .
Further inspiration and another painting perhaps .
Zzyzx Rd. 2024 oil on canvas 30 by 40 inches
I had scribbled down sketches as the truck bumped along, securing mentally paintings I knew I needed to make ; paintings as reminders of the desert, of despair, of sham, of worldliness and also humor .
Doodle note from our cross country move from LA to Chicago, Summer 2022
I didn’t begin the actual painting until this last July, but had been mulling the composition about in my head.
Begun July 11th 2023
I had left this painting for a week at 2023’s end, allowing the holidays to distract, hoping to reset my eyes. Returning to the studio after that break, I realized it was indeed finished .
Of course I couldn’t not add a few more brush strokes .
Details follow:
The geometric forms, the castle-like structures were inspired by what I saw as we whizzed by.
The figure of Death at the camera , filming the polychromatic horror show was inspired by the very final chapter of Thomas Mann’s Death in Venice, where the central character Gustav van Aschenbach, dying upon the beaches of a plague stricken Venice, is filmed by an abandoned movie camera. A haunting, perversely humorous ending for anyone seeking worldly fame.
Neo-Gothic architecture just outside the Hellmouth of Vegas.The garish geometry, also just outside Vegas.Erectile Dysfunction (salacious billboards galore) and ice cream cones, a perfect combo.I was able to spot an Eddie’s stand, way off on the horizon; oddly fairytale menacing like the gingerbread house that lured Hansel and Gretel.
What really brought a chuckle was, while driving for hours through the bleak and sterile godless land, this casino sign popped up, my thought:Exactly!
World famous Terrible’s
I knew it would make it into the painting somehow, almost titled the painting Terrible, Not Good.
Boondocks Babylon 