Leaving Washington

30"x40" oil on canvas             $300 + s&h

I've mentioned in previous posts that I have a novel I've been chipping away at for years now that I'd love to have completed, published, and distributed in the not-too-distant future.  However, I've been more productive in creating paintings based on scenes in the story--not for the purpose of illustration but rather to have the literary process assist the painting process and vice versa.  Things I can capture in words can challenge me to create with paint and alternately it's a very healthy challenge to describe in my writing what I've painted intentionally or not.

In this scene my protagonist, a child, and his siblings leave their home in Washington with their mother and family friend/male guardian.  This move was made necessary with the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act, which not only gave the legal go-ahead to law enforcement and "concerned" citizens to forcibly return fugitive slaves anywhere within the United States to their owner for reward, but it had the collateral effect of subjecting freed blacks to being sacked and kidnapped and having their free papers destroyed and disregarded.  This was particularly prevalent in slave-holding  jurisdictions known for harboring runaways on what is known as the Underground Railroad.  Washington, DC was one such place and I imagine my protagonist who is actually also my great (x3) grandfather and particularly his family may have felt the heat despite their freed status.

In this painting I tried to show the somberness of the moment--my characters' backs to us, lined up at the docks, waiting to be stowed away on a cargo steamer down the Potomac River and eventually carried north via the Chesapeake Bay.  The travel must happen at night so as not to be as easily noticed but the risk and fear is still there even amongst these "freed" people.

MCV Mural: The Left Wall

acrylic on drywall

This is the left side of the 3 part mural.  The jaguar you see here is one of the three animals I contributed to the piece (another is that small yellow bird).  Of course I had the most fun painting that tree, grass and water--more my element.  As I've mentioned in previous posts the entire experience is a positive memory for me and I wish to do more murals in the future.  Nothing like having art placed semi-permanently for mass consumption and enjoyment--especially for the delight of children who oohed and ahhed throughout its creation.

MCV Pediatric Dentistry Clinic: The Main Span

Acrylic on Drywall

This is the broad, main span of the mural I did for the Medical College of Virginia/VCU's Pediatric Dentistry Clinic.  The macaw, crocodile, and hippo all are courtesy of my friend Danielle Gant who helped me on this project.  Even though the characterization of artists as being sensitive, egotistical narcissists remains often true, we had great fun working together. Great experience!

MCV Mural: The Column

acrylic on drywall

In 2007, I was given the opportunity to design a mural to liven up the atmosphere at VCU's/Medical College of Virginia's  Pediatric Dentistry Clinic.  For whatever reason my mind immediately turned towards a jungle theme and I went about sketching out the design.  Once it was okayed, I asked a good friend and artist, Danielle Gant, to help with it's completion.  I was not sorry.

Danielle's addition of the macaw, crocodile, and hippo to the piece were invaluable and in my opinion, amazing.  What's more she spent only a few weeks, maybe a month, (5 hrs/week intervals) working on the piece before going to D.C. after graduating--huge contributions under limited time.

In this part of the mural you see the column that I transformed into a tree.  The notion to do so seemed obvious to me, I simply painted a bark pattern and some leaves around the top molding.

Please Forgive Me

      Digital

This was intended to be the cover of a book.  The story goes: a daughter sews her mother a pillow cover in school in preparation for a PTA meeting.  At the last minute, this working mom has to cancel and remain at work, devastating the little girl who had been anticipating her mother's reaction upon receiving the pillow she had worked so hard to make.  At home the mother seeks the daughter's forgiveness and attempts to explain the sacrifices working moms must make sometimes in order to provide for their family.

Too bad the book deal failed but the story remains a sweet and relevant one and serves as a good narrative for an illustration.

Going Home

           Lithograph 24"x36"    $200 + s&h

This piece was the first lithograph I have done.  It was made in December '04; the drawing process was quick and explorative as I was using all kinds of greasy materials from litho pencils and oil-based markers to stamps.  The printing process was long, difficult but overall educational.  

The narrative here, is that seaman, who is reaching the end of his days returns to the ocean where he feels more at home than anywhere.  It is a simple story but one I'm sure many who have spent a large portion of their lives at sea may identify with.

Potomac River Study

Oil on Canvas   42"x54"

 

In 2003, when I first endeavored to paint seascapes I sorta fell flat.  My first effort was nothing like I had hoped it would be, but I learned one of the first and most important rules about painting water--you can't do it from a studio miles from any natural water.  You have to get out there at, or even better, on the water.

      So on a trip back home to DC, I went over to Haines Point at East Potomac Park.  I stood by the rails and stared into the water, focussing on the rhythm of the waves, motion of the currents, the twinkles of sunlight.  I took several photographs and later sketches.  Then I purchased the largest canvas I've worked on and went about a study--a sincere focus on the minutia of water that despite being minute, is very important to notice and record in order to make a convincing piece.  This study, and the lesson I learned has been invaluable to every maritime piece I've done since then.

Rest for the Weary

     Oil Stick on Paper

All of the research on ancestry had me feeling, above other things, humbled about the hardships I encounter in my life. Along with humbled, I add, that there is a sense of appreciation for even being alive because that means that those before me were survivors and certainly they did what they had to do to ensure there'd be a future for their family after they were gone. In this oil-stick creation, I have four chairs lined on a porch that symbolize the gesture of offering one a seat, an opportunity to rest. The whole time I worked on this, the thought of offering my ancestors a seat was at the forefront of my mind and the thought served as the purpose for this piece--another homage.

Randolph Place Northwest

                                               acrylic on canvas       24"x36"

Here's a piece of nostalgia.  I painted this in the eleventh grade (2001).  It was probably the first piece I felt real pride in as I was becoming familiar with the paintbrush.  It is also a rarity in that it's painted with acrylics.  The title is the name of the street in Washington shown here where I lived the entirety of my first 18 years.

Escape on the Chesapeake

                                                                                             30"x40" ($250 plus s&h)

Another one of my narratives. A man concealed only by a large brimmed hat and the darkness of night tries to escape into open water. Threatening guards patrol the mouth of this inlet. Note the left bank of the inlet is a field of dead salt meadow cordgrass and the right bank has lively smooth cordgrass--the dichotomy is a deliberate illustration of the stakes our protagonist faces.

Apalachicola Storm 1851

                                                              Oil on Canvas            36"x48" $400 + s&h

This painting was my first attempt at a storm painting reminiscent, though not close to skill and quality, of Turner's and Homer's turbulent pieces.  If those two represent the star I was shooting for then this piece is the moon where I landed.  To read more about the story behind the painting, please look below at "Poplar Island Castways."  This painting shows the hurricane  that results in the cast away scene there.  In the distance you can see a waterspout spawned by the storm.

It is worth mentioning that I had a show and lecture at Northern Virginia Community College Manassas Campus in February 2008.   The 5 painting series was on display (amongst other works). There I was able to provide the story behind the pieces, but until I have a book published and sold, I am quite happy allowing the pieces to stand alone.  It is always interesting to get feedback that I have not help form by feeding verbal information, only the visual variety.

Poplar Island Castways

Oil on Canvas  30"x40"

Here's what's going on:  Loosely derived from the facts of one my ancestor's life, a free family whose matriarch has been an abolitionist activist and a slave with hopes of running to freedom join together in fleeing from a volatile District of Columbia soon after the passing of the Fugitive Slave Act.  Mother Nature delays their arrival in free territory while sailing north through the Chesapeake Bay.  The Apalachicola Storm of 1851 (a hurricane) has blown northward from its Floridian namesake and sunk their schooner, overloaded with voyagers of a similar plight and with too few life boats available for evacuation.  Our family, however, has survived and are washed ashore at Poplar Island,  an island once large enough to host a community towards the end of the 19th century.  However, in the 1850s, there was no population to speak of.   As you can now tell, detail abounds under the surface of this painting that I hope some may find intriguing enough to ask "okay what's going on here?"

Patuxent Oyster Shucker

Okay, in certain areas of the country you can still domestic oysters being exported. The Pacific Northwest still has a good deal of them. The waters of the Long Island Sound are doing what they can to produce some for market and then you have the comparatively miserable few still coming out of the Chesapeake Bay--a name which literally translates to "Great Shellfish Bay" in Algonquian (the once dominant Native American tribe of the Mid-Atlantic States.

When oysters were as plentiful in the Chesapeake as say six and twelve-pack beer rings in the Anacostia (the lesser-known DC river), they controlled the local economy as much as say, technology companies and the Federal Government do today. At a time when I wanted to know more about my ancestry, I thought and read about this period in this region's history. More intimately, I thought about my ancestors who undoubtedly had a much closer relationship to the land and waters than we do today. Among being farmers and craftsmen, they fished and shucked and sold oysters. This painting was an homage to them and the hard, tedious work they did for survival and as tradition.

Byrd Park Swan Lake

   Oil on Canvas

During one of my first excursions around the town of Richmond, I came to Byrd Park near the very beautiful Maymont Park. That whole area is probably Richmond's best place for a nature-loving artist like me, only second to the James River Parks. When I found this view of Swan Lake between two elms, I was captured by the composition they formed and knew it had to be my next painting.

Carroll Family Plantation

                                                                                         30"x40" $300 + s&h

With this piece I tried to imagine how Poplar Island, Maryland would have looked 40 years after the historical Carroll family's farm had been sacked by the British in 1812-14 and fields of cord grass and vines had taken over the once tilled land. The scene is something I have written about in my historical fiction novel I've been working on and I found it always helps to paint and write about the same thing. One informs the other.

Cornrows

Oil on Canvas

    

I did this one back in college.  To most, you see a path through rows of corn, and yes that is all that I intended for anyone to see; in fact beyond that I am completely satisfied with everyone taking away their own ideas, memories, connotations from this painting.  However, with this painting and a number of others painted around this time, I was thinking about the African-American agricultural history (particularly my own ancestry) and through the title I tied that with another tradition and history of braiding hair in cornrows.  Cornrows, the hairstyle, have been around since forever, predating the African American experience, beginning in Africa, but they now have a hip-hop influenced popularity.   But you can imagine whoever first named the style did so at a time when rows of corn were inextricably tied to everyday life, controlling, through the success of a year's harvest, one's livelihood.   

Fall Line

Oil on Canvas 30"x40"     $350 + s&h

This painting was a follow-up to "Belle Isle Dawn."  In fact, as I would come to the same rocky perch some twenty-thirty yards out into the James River to record notes, sketches, etc. to inform my painting of the Richmond, VA skyline at dawn, I would later do the exact same thing, this time looking upstream.  As you can see, a half-hour's difference in time and an 180 degree turn in direction can make for an  entirely different feel and painting altogether.  That was the point.   "Belle Isle Dawn" gave me an exercise in painting architecture that I was not used to.  It was good to have but entirely unnatural feeling for me.  And in "Fall Line" it was good to get back to painting nature by capturing the James River's class four Hollywood Rapids on canvas.

Belle Isle Dawn

    Oil on Canvas  30"x40"    $350 + s&h

    

I painted this one after taking a series of predawn trips to Belle Isle and trying to capture through sketch, memory, notation, and photograph, the mood and atmosphere of watching the sunrise on those cool, spring mornings.  I'd go back to my apartment/studio and flesh out everything afterwards. 

     Motivation? Well after living in Richmond for seven years, it was time to finally do a Richmond painting.  It seems I'd paint anything but what was around me.  This was to be my formal, artistic embrace of my "new" home.