Monday's contemplative

While I listen to Berlioz's La Damnation de Faust, I sit and stare out the window at the waving trees against the light gray of the sky realizing how I love the constant changing of weather from day to day. Am not a big opera buff either but decided to explore more of this expression while working in the studio and around the house. (I also picked up Verdi's Otello) but now as I observe the outside, I think about what I have done here since my move to Anchorage ten years ago. Here are just a few things worth mentioning in no specific order:

1 - My dog Blue, who is a 130 pound Newfoundland lies asleep by the door. She has been around our home for close to seven years. During that time, I have learned how to groom her, clip her gigantic nails and pay attention to her delicate health of fragile limbs and allergic ears. We manage to take walks through the grasses and down to the creek where she loves to cool her paws.
2 - I have learned how to handle a mountain bike and roam the hillsides of Anchorage with fellow bikers. This group dynamic has challenged a different entourage in my life and tested my ability to see people from other parts of the town. Learning to bike on a treacherous terrain too goes with part of the cyclist journey; long winding bumpy grounds sometimes laced with roots, rocks and an odd assemblage of growth can spin you into the air over the handlebars if you are not careful.
3 - I have been able to teach art appreciation and drawing classes at the University of Alaska; being immersed in a learning environment has helped me grow to know more about the art that I do, why I do it, what it really is, and expand this knowledge to the community.
4 - My studio is behind my house and every day I take a short walk behind my home and climb the steps to my sacred place. Never have I had this luxury in the past. The time I can spend on my work has been fruitful, long, thoughtfull periods mixed with unproductive spans of creative blocks while some of it has been ground breaking and other times monotonous. Living here in Anchorage has given me a different perspective of place in contrast to a large city. Big city pretentiousness has begun to peel off of my shoulders little by little.
5 - (Need I mention the incredible setting and nature parts that surrounds my periphery while I drive to places around town and can visit on a daily basis?)
6 - Being able to travel and see parts of the world has advanced my artistic persona. My partner of ten years is a great companion; we have reinvented our home, our lives to fit a fulfilling existence while I envision more adventure ahead.

P.S. - Days ago I was battling with the half full/half empty dilemma. Today, I am in the full mode and recognize how quickly the contents can drain from the glass. Saying that, I feel that I lifted the jinx and can exclaim good times!

shifting landscapes of experience

Shifting landscapes are a series of studies on line, color and space using oil stick and paints. They are casual and abstract renderings of the environment that I see around me while I frequent the outdoors. I reinterpret these surroundings in another way aside from the traditional landscapes that are easily recognizable such as visable mountains, trees, creeks and the lush green that inhabits the Alaskan summers. My works are progressive and ongoing studies and looking at these images can change day to day.

These two works, pictured above and below are studies on clouds. Many times when I am working in the studio, I have no idea where my drawings and paintings will lead me. They are manifestations of the collective unconscious, a Jungian concept that includes a universal library of human knowledge, or sage in the man or the very transcendental wisdom that guides mankind. Jungian theory focuses on dreams and symbols. Certain archetypes are the structure of the collective unconscious such as birth, death, power and failure. I studied Jung in California and as I write this I feel the need to reimmerse myself back into Jung's writings. While at college, I started out as a psychology major and delve into languages, gradually changing to the fine arts after moving to Los Angeles, California. Writing this blog helps me sort out my thoughts and inner/hidden reflections and uncovers the past bringing new discoveries to the present.

summer and time

Long days with light and uninterrupted periods of space to reflect and to spread out in the sun maybe watering each plant attentively with quiet is a luxury. These gems dominate my summer until I think about the Atlantic Ocean long ago, so vast and sparking with glittering stars atop the surface. I once laid upon my stomach on the sand loving each sensation of time, observing the small tubular water drops that lingered on my tan arms from a recent dip. Feeling my warm breath, I never wanted this moment to vanish. Hot, humid days of people parading the shore with that stunning horizon that I looked at a million times but didn't see and didn't take the time to reflect upon its greatness until now, as I miss this thirty years later.

Summer days can be all absorbing. I make sure I have time to observe the birds, the heat and the blue in between the spaces of the tree leaves as they wave saying how happy they are. Light chime songs are competing with the sounds of the wind that dominates this occasion. I cannot tell the difference between the beauty of past/present. They melt into one. They are inseparable.