September 13, 2018
Fred Barnard is credited with these notable words: "A picture is worth ten thousand words". However, I have always adhered to the precept that, "Ten thousand words is worth a picture".
In my formative years I had the good fortune to be blessed with excellent Latin, English, and art teachers whose instructions overlapped. As a result, I developed a lifelong respect and ardor for our language and connected it with the ability to create beauty-on-request.
Aside from formal tutelage in the painting and language departments, informal training at home was emphatically centered on Nonsense Appreciation 101-801.
Instruction was carried out relentlessly by family, close and distant relatives, neighbors, friends, and even enemies.
As a result of this aggregate education, I approach any sort of autobiographical confessions with faint heart, chortles, and an inability to take myself, or anyone else, seriously enough to get to the point.
Inspiration for my "work" springs forth from word pictures, enters the brain, is processed into glorious techniquecolor, flows out the arm via the funny bone, arrives at the hand and, with the help of brush, some paint, and a little music, becomes Art.
As any artist will tell you, there's nothing to it.
Recently, I embarked on a sub-career in the third dimension: making empty pistachio shells into tableaux staged in cigar boxes. These empty-headed nuts depict silent stories of human doings known to and dreaded by all. The Doctor and Dentist Offices, the OR, Don Quixote's Windmills, Peter Pan's Crocodile, The Swamp, etc. are favorite subjects for ridiculousness. Many of the ideas for these Pistachipopulae are swiped from others' scripts, but the settings are unique.
Last, and probably least, I construct miniature books. Some of the little volumes are rather naughty, but all are verbally toddler-proof. The books are the same price as a manicure but last a lot longer.
I owe Studios on the Park in Paso Robles sincere and humble gratitude for allowing me the opportunity to hang and display under their generous roof, among their other artists' excellent and serious works of art,
