Busy, busy

Hello. This is a very active period of creating art for me. I have lots of people interested in modeling and a backlog of new and older images that I feel an urgent need to work on. Finding good deals on materials lately is just adding fuel to the fire. The last few weeks have been dedicated to making casts for upcoming work.

I've recently found several people who are willing to do some of the larger casts that are central to many of the images I want to work on right now. As I contemplate and work on these sketches, the concepts are starting to fall into a few separate categories.

States of Being
These works are reflective of everyday events - the mental, emotional and spiritual reverberations of common interactions. It may be as simple as a restless night's sleep or as complicated as a power struggle in the professional world. Some of the images in this category also depict the interaction of spirit guides and helpers, whether or not the physically incarnate person in the image is aware of their presence.


Mastering Power
These images are more direct in their depiction of working with subtle energies, learning to control and direct where the energies will flow and with what intent. The presence of spirit guides and others on higher planes is often consciously perceived by the subject in the painting.

Although I'll probably end up with enough of each category to have them in separate shows, they've been developing concurrently. In the paintings already finished, Well In Hand and Controlled Release fall squarely into the Mastering Power category, where Laf it Off and Breakaway are more in the States of Being camp.

There are also works I'm planning in conjunction with my friend Helen Wassell for a show about her journey through a serious battle with cancer. We're planning the slow development of a multi-media installation project called "Fear Gone".

With so many works in progress, I'm actively seeking locations for shows and gallery representation and the finished paintings are definitely for sale through my online gallery site.

Sketches for other plannned works:

Casting away!

It's been a busy week of making plaster casts for upcoming paintings. There are more sessions coming later this week and even more as soon as I get a new case of plaster bandage in. Many of these are in preparation for some upcoming shows.

I have a solo show slated for July/August at Zeitgeist gallery in Pittsfield and Helen Wassell and I have two joint shows planned there - Facing 50 and Fear Gone.

My own show is going to be a continuation of the current Passages collection (I've yet to think of a show title). I want to show a wider range of interactions and situations of an everyday level, and then work the series toward progressively transcendent themes.

Facing 50 is Helen's concept, basically showing cultural influences she's experienced in her 50 years of life so far. She at least wanted a few casts of her face, one for each era of her life, but now we're tossing around the idea of 50 faces, one for each year.

Fear Gone is a more involved installation / art combo show, chronicling her experiences with esophageal cancer.

So far this week, I've made casts of my partner, Wendy, my parents and Helen.


Wendy getting plastered.


Mom, Sophia Wessel.