The Evolution of a Letter

This series of pictures I created based on my hand writing. As part of my life involves making artwork, other parts involve the motions that most of us carry on as functioning citizens. Through the tasks of daily life, one day it struck me as I was writing something down, "Hey, this feels like that one thing I really enjoy doing called drawing." So I decided to experiment, I began substituting my handwriting in my pictures, removing whatever typical drawing may have occured in the process. I built the rest of the painting on the skeleton of my handwriting.

So as not to be just writing jibberish as I worked, I decided to write letters to friends and family, and then keep writing over the writing, to make it illegible. I thought, if I know people will never actually read the letters I wont have to edit any content, or emotion. This helped to form an emotionally harmonious cohesiveness, and developed into some very expressive gestural riffs. So as the process started rolling along, I gave myself more and more liberty with how I was abstracting and reinventing letters and words.

My mind wandered during the countless hours of creating this series. I thought about how, like in these paintings, words are very much just a skeleton. It is what is between the words, what surrounds them and fills them up that gives them value. How words from our past change and evolve as we gain experience and context. The longer and more vivid our journey is, the more meat we can put on the words which were once just skeletons. FIll them with emotion, jest, compassion, boldness, gratitude, and many things we lacked while being younger. I also thought about how ironic it is that hand written letters, and paintings are both fading out of fashion. Enjoy these paintings, and write someone a letter....

"Letter #3"

Oil, acrylic, pastel, latex.

4.5' tall - Stretched canvas

SOLD

"Letter # 3"

Oil, acrylic, charcoal, pastel.

5'2" tall - stretched canvas

$800-

"Letter #6"

Acrylic, latex paint, charcoal.

19"x 19" framed

SOLD-

"Letter #4"

Oil, acrylic, charcoal, spray paint, oil pastel.

4'4" tall, framed.

$450-