In Like a Lamb-Out Like a Lamb

The end of March was a scramble to get a second painting ready for the Spring Show and this is what I ended up with. I've spent some time recently interpreting beach sculpture-related imagery into paintings. The end result I'm not entirely sure of at this point. The piece I submitted to Harrisburg was significantly more interesting, but this has a few things going for it. I like the colors and repetitive circle motif, but what I'm not sold on is the irregular stones on the right side of the painting. I'll have to give it some time to work itself out. What I like about the feel of these last two paintings is that they have a kind of Japanese garden-zen-wabi sabi-Lake Erie feel that can be somewhat meditative for me, in the same way that looking at Jackson Pollock's or Mark Rothko's can be. Or for that matter doing the beachworks. This is the effect that I wanted to get and at least in some ways it works for me. I've been painting the frames gold on black and the gold band around the frame does not connect, but is rather open at the corners. This is to lend an air that the painting is not entirely contained by the frame, but rather extends beyone the defined space, escapes as it were. Just some thoughts... A couple of sketches on the beach that I altered after drunken revelers damaged the original version by setting a fire on it. It is that time of the year when pyromanic, beer-swilling, littering morons migrate to the neighborhood beach. Storms keep washing away the wrong things.

Pre-Equinoctial Good Fortune

On the verge of Spring, but is it really Spring if Winter wasn't really Winter? Last week it was in the 60's every day and this week it is supposed to be even warmer. Trees are already budding and I can say I do not recall such an early and warm Spring in all of the years I've been on this planet. This begs the question of how we are going to pay for this...or perhaps we already have.

Today on the morning news I listened to Rick Santorum claim that one of the things that seperated him from the other buffoons running for the Republican nod was that he didn't believe in the Global Climate Change myth. He may have a hard time convincing his opponents that the whole thing is a science conspiracy, like evolution, gravity and other far-fetched schemes. Does a day go by when a big piece of idiocy doesn't drop out of that guy's mouth? Anyways, its been a nice start to Spring.

Did a lot of work collecting stone down on the beach this weekend and while at it, I did a little piece just to get a break from lugging 30 pound stones down the beach. No storms in the last two weeks have kept my current stone pile safe. By the mid April I may be able to start planning the next big work. This first piece looks better horizontally, but for some reason the blog-picture device keeps turning it on its side. I'm sure there is a way to correct that, but it is beyond my understanding at this point.