I really enjoy hearing the thoughts of artists dead and gone. People who's concepts and work has changed the way people view the world... so I'll share some I've collected.

Art is not what you see, but what you make others see.
Edger Degas

When I am finishing a picture, I hold some God-made object up to it - a rock, a flower, the branch of a tree or my hand - as a final test. If the painting stands up beside a thing man cannot make, the painting is authentic. If there's a clash between the two, it's bad art.
Mark Chagall

Never permit a dichotomy to rule your life, a dichotomy in which you hate what you do so you can have pleasure in your spare time. Look for a situation in which your work will give you as much happiness as your spare time.
Pablo Picasso

I don't do drugs. I am drugs.
Salvador Dali

Progressive art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.
Salvador Dali

I feel that there is nothing more truly artistic than to love people.
Vincent Van Gogh

One may have a blazing hearth in one's soul and yet no one ever came to sit by it. Passers-by see only a wisp of smoke from the chimney and continue on their way.
-Vincent Van Gough

Whatever an artist's personal feelings are, as soon as an artist fills a certain area on the canvas or circumscribes it, he becomes historical. He acts from or upon other artists.

-Willem de Kooning

The secret to so many artists living so long is that every painting is a new adventure. So, you see, they're always looking ahead to something new and exciting. The secret is not to look back.
-Norman Rockwell

I always have a good reason for taking something out but I never have one for putting something in. And I don't want to, because that means that the picture is being painted predigested.
-Robert Rauschenberg

God takes care of imbeciles, little children and artists. -Camille Pissarro

Another piece in progress... Im going to keep going at her till she feels right. I keep thinking she is almost there, then she takes a total turn. You will probably see her finished and up in our shop at art walk this month.

Progress of "School" (unfinished)

I snapped the progress of this painting every once in a while, when there was a convenient moment. Some kind of obvious allegory here once the title, "School," is given. Shallow water, the 50% split of those afloat and those not, the nudity(innocence), the fish (prosperity) swarming above the water to the boated boys. This painting is unfinished.

Smaller Picture (Detail)

This Is a portion from the smaller picture I had discussed a couple posts ago. Messing with the perspective by using the abstracted layer as foreground And background, filling in blocked out fields without prejudice, letting things slip back and forth. It worked especially well on the top portion of the canopy bed that is not shown in this photo.

Tea, anyone?

Yes, so this is the detail from where the piece I last posted progressed. It is the middle third of the picture, just didn't want to give away too much with a sub par photo. But this is the gist. I've been on a bit of a victorian trip as of late. Tea time?

What a Drag.

This is the large canvas I was speaking of. Yes it does have a lot of character and depth, which would show up much better in a more prof photo. But, I have decided to take her deeper. So I am posting this image as the point of pivot. Today I will work with charcoal, drafting a simple scene over the top, then manipulate perspective.

It is very important to take risks in your work. You will see as this piece evolves. This picture could have stayed like this, and been very pleasing. But through taking risks, you open yourself up to work beyond simple scenery. In painting a subject exactly as it is, you reveal nothing that isn't revealed already. You take no risk as you mimic the world around you. But as you take risks, the decisions you make reveal a unique perspective on reality. Making this reality a personal one, a personal experience, a conscious perspective which requires decisions to be made about the subject or surrounding. The more of these decisions you make, the more humanity is let into the work, and the more relevant it is to your fellow human. So remember while you are working that it is not necessarily what you decide or choose to do in your pictures that is of importance, rather, the significance comes from you making the choices first of all. Do not be scared to choose following an impulse in your picture, and don't be afraid to paint over it if it turns out wretched.

African Wife.

This is gold spray paint, charcoal, and acrylic, on water colour paper.

30"x22"

$300-

White Light.

I think it was Van Gogh who described the moment when will, feeling, inspiration, and action all come together in the act of true creation as white light. Or maybe it was white "lightning". Either way this is an example of some of that.

Picasso:

Names To Look Up

Names to check out... Ray Johnson, Jake Norris, Wolfgang Kvietkus, Lorjou, Henry Darger. If you don't know who these artists are, I suggest you look them up and get familiar with their work.

Science and Nature, 2005

oh man, dug this one up from long ago. 2005 I believe. Science and Nature.

Mardi Gracias

This is one of the masks that I did for the HRIC benefit.

Lions and Lambs

Yesterday I worked further on the smaller piece. I had received some feedback on the large piece, that I should leave it, that it looked finished and beautiful, so I have been sitting on it seeing how I feel about it once I put some distance between myself and the canvas.

With the smaller one I placed a scene on top with some graphite, very minimal detail, of a woman reading next to a victorian canopy top bed. Then filled in some colour in some of the fields without prejudice, leaving some of the background as negative space, and some as positive, trying to give an effect of uncertain perspective. I am happy with it so far.

Application

My attitude of confusion regarding themes of late, has resulted in a little more abstracted studies the last few days. I've been toying with different ways to apply paint, to see if I can achieve the feeling Im leaning toward. Broader application, using squeegee-like appliques. Broadly sweeping across a large canvas, I have been adding white to the applicator in clumps along with which ever other colours I am moving, I allow colours to mix only as they are drug across the canvas, giving very harmonious value transitions within the broad strokes, but very harsh contrasts as the colour trails intersect and overlap one another. I plan to work more with this, until I am satisfied.

Christ

oil, on news paper $500-

Portland Animals

These two were painted in my basement studio in N.E. Portland, 2009

2 Man Show 2009 Red Room , Wolfgang&Cameron.

WSU gallery 2010

Brett, Wolfgang & Marisa

Bicycles and Summertime

Some graphite and oil pastel studies digitally manipulated. Bicycles and summer time, ah the thought makes me smile. Soon, soon.

Genius is the ability to renew one's emotions in daily experience. Paul Cezanne

blue boy.

The body is meant to be seen, not all covered up.

We all know that Art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize the truth, at least the truth that is given to us to understand. Pablo Picasso

Computers are useless. They can only give you answers. Pablo Picasso

Yes, sometimes I become hyper critical of my artwork, and filter my perception of other's work through that same attitude. I ask what the point is, what is the motive?

Then every once in a while, i realize, yes, there is value in just simply making something beautiful, in a world of panic and manic spiritual bashfulness.

Positivity and innocence. Yes please.

On the topic of clothes: personally I don't sport a uniform or specific painting clothes, as long as there is comfort, and the ability to be what most would consider destructive, this works. Mostly I have it the other way around, there is a specific set of clothes I don't paint in. So most of my clothes are colourful.

Boom

Moving your hands about when you are thinking. Thinking with your hands, not talking with your hands. A lot of my work is simply thinking with my hands.

Gestures and Excersizes

"getting the wiggles out" ha

From the Spring Trees series

1 of 11 in the series I did this spring.

Hanford Reach piece

I painted this one for the H.R.I.C. Mardi Gras Ball. Print auctioned for $1000.
Original on stretched canvas for sale:  $5000-

April 8th 2011

Ive been looking at a lot of art magazines that a friend has given me, they are from the mid 90's. I hate to say it, but I enjoy their content more than most of the current ones I've been following.

I stretched an 8ft canvas that I am excited to get started on. Ive been working on a large canvas, around 6 feet, 3 women picking flowers in a garden wearing white cotton dresses. Took much time with the dots i've been fond of including lately, I became dissatisfied with it though, upon working in spite of a flustered state one day I dominated the picture with red oil, and have not had the heart to progress. It feels too muddy, i wanted to limit my colours, but now with the red oil, it seems dull and dissonant.

Also been working with more gestural drawings, need to get the wiggles out before they taint my bigger pieces i've been starting. I know that if i cant release some of the energy in my lines through small studies i will become over eager and soil my other work. Constraints of working in a smaller space that doesnt lend itself to the work is surely effecting most aspects of these pieces, learning is good though.. Wasnt it Da Vinci that said working in small spaces makes you smarter? At least my walls are white... I am always tempted to work directly on to them. ha.

There are so many artisticals I'd like to practice that by the time it comes to : "What do i do with this," or "How do i market this?" I dont have time. I hang work in our coffee shop, but it kills me when so many people act so smugly toward it so often. I don't like explaining any of it or discussing it with people who dont truly care or want to know anything about it...

I have been often struggling lately with what i should paint toward. What is there for me to say? Masterbatory self expression is leaving me blank, as I feel less. I may pick some ideal to stand for, a solid thing, a solid concept to apply myself to, some worthy cause to paint about, so as not to be so stuck in the question of "why?" I need something really pivotal to all human beings, something to better the human race. Ha, bettering the human race, how cheesy...