I was invited to paint a mural on a bath house at Olin Sang summer camp in Wisconsin called ‘Noah’s Ark.’ An older mural had been painted on one side of the building back in 2004, about 25 feet long and 8 feet high. My job was to create a new mural on the opposite side. But in actuality the mural was to encompass all four sides of the building.

All in all, painting ‘Noah’s Ark II’ was a very challenging but also an extremely gratifying and satisfying project. I loved the notion of starting it all off with nothing more than a pencil, a blank piece of paper, and an idea. But most importantly, without the kids’ drawings, imagination, and inspiration, the mural would not have come to be.

I was also pleased to be able to integrate and incorporate the new with the old. Although stylistically the two murals are adversely different from one another the lines of the ark in the original mural are aligned with the new one thereby unifying both boats. It also turns out that the two murals are almost seamlessly joined together where the rainbows meet, at the corner of the bath house. Finally, and probably the best part is that the two murals, old and new, have become one piece united. I guess that’s how it should be.

In 1963, Pablo Picasso was commissioned to create a monumental sculpture for the city of Chicago. In 1967 it was unveiled to much controversy and debate. I too have found it quite intriguing. What exactly is it? A horse, a bird, the head of baboon? Picasso never really explained it.

I had also read someplace that the piece was inspired by a young acquaintance of Picasso, a woman with a long neck and high ponytail. The Beautiful Lady series is my attempt to visualize this notion. I painted six similar but not exact likenesses of the sculpture and after cutting them apart, I mixed them up and reassembled all of the pieces back together again. It was my cubist solution to a cubist question.

Windows

Years ago in an effort to camouflage the chaos that defined our somewhat disorganized bookshelves I fashioned some decorative doors that pleased me but annoyed my wife for the very reason that they obscured the books. One day she took it upon herself to remove the doors but only after she reorganized the books. So I was left with the doors that I had originally fashioned from old window frames. I had removed the thin wood strips that I had used to create lattice structures in each window panel and searched for something to fill the spaces. Over the years I had collected remnants of canvas that were too small to stretch but too big to discard. With a little trimming they would fit perfectly into the window panels. I had previously used string to secure works together in my ‘Remnant’ and ‘Walk About’ series and thought I could try the same thing with this new ‘Window’ series using the sum of parts to create a whole. In this case, portraits.

I found about the Viaduct Mural Project in Oak Park, IL the day before the deadline for submissions . Because time was of the essence I decided to submit an image of an actual painting. Lo and behold it got selected. I ordered the paint and waited for the walls of the viaduct to be prepped and primed. They were ready on a Thursday and I worked for four hours on Friday until I could not stand the chill any longer (it was in the mid-40’s), worked another chilly day on Sunday and finished the piece the following Wednesday. Bing , bang, boom. It was almost like painting by numbers since all I was doing was copying the painting although I did end up taking a few liberties as the work developed. The good news is that I was working with acrylics. They dry in minutes. And the bad news is that I was working with acrylics. Because of the speed that they dry it made blending colors difficult. The course cement surface is also rough on the brushes. But other than these minor adjustments the piece came together beautifully. I haven’t quite decided on a name but for now I’ll call it “The Brush Off.”