"luthiers” Two men running barbedwire along a row of hedgeposts. They scowl accordingly, because it wasn't done right the first time. The point of view in this painting is from the kid that did it wrong, but that kid don't mind. They're out at the river, and anyone running wire on a day like this has made enough mistakes of their own. 24"x36" acrylic on canvas
“every free and open range invariably has a fence somewhere” A massive and sprawling Flint Hills landscape, scored over time by glacial drift and cattle paths. I painted the hills like an ocean swell, rolling the Earth itself up towards the heavens. I needed to smash a ten mile view into a three foot wide x four feet tall canvas. It still spills out. 36”x48” acrylic on canvas
“from kanopolis to kanorado” I spawned this one on the dreaded and much-maligned drive through Western Kansas, en route to Denver. Kara and I were going to see The National at Fiddler's Green, and I saw plenty of beauty through the barren wasteland. In the interest of brevity, I decided to try to squeeze it all into one piece. Trains and fields and an endless patch of road. Acoustic and electric windmills. Limestone castles built to last forever by a people that were not, and towers of grain standing fast against rust and ruin, as long as the trains keep to task. 36"x36" Acrylic on canvas.
I've always held a large infatuation with carnivals, and for a time, it seemed that many of the choices I made in life took a carnival-adjacent turn or flavor. I liked the Americana of it. Grifters and rubes, three balls for a dollar. Machinery so old and worn down, repainted so the next town wouldn't know the Devastator used to be the Riptide that killed that boy last Summer. Bootleg KISS and Mötley Crüe merch, Michael Jordan flying through the sky on a mirror in a paper frame, and the real-deal-i-swear-to-god Elvis Presley counting crumpled ones and fives in the RV, with an ill-tempered dog or two chained outside for color. That's just plain art. "also starring art carney" 36"x48" acrylic on canvas
This one has a story. I spent a sizable portion of my youth waiting in the station wagon, the farmiest of farm implements. This is not our station wagon, we had a blue Plymouth. This is a Buick, and the color is the color of Dad's flatbed, the propane one that caught fire. Details notwithstanding, this is an accurate portrayal of a memory. 30"x40" acrylic on kansas.
“in the spring the war was there, but we did not go to it, anymore." "Solitude for the sake of solitude" is a central theme that runs through many of my pieces. If there is a person, they may not even be the subject of the painting. The setting is what I'm after, and the subject is the place and time. I want to put the viewer inside, to see the vastness I see. I want them to feel the sun, the breeze. I want them to feel alive in the solitude, but not necessarily alone. The title is pulled from Hemingway. 30x40 acrylic on canvas
"tallgrass” Tallgrass is set in the eponymous grasslands that run throughout the Kansas Ordinaries. Two hikers. The one in the foreground is all business, probably walking for time. The other, however… The other is doing it right, and the wind takes a lover. 24”x36” acrylic on canvas
"the promise of spring is sometimes sorrow" There is a recurrent theme in my dreams of tornadoes and Chinese food. This piece addresses the former. A simultaneously messy and tightly contained landscape of motion and impending destruction. The family is either gone or in the cellar. They will not rebuild. The windmill has seen it all before, and cannot be bothered. 30x40 acrylic on canvas
"along the treeline he dreamt and wept" 30x30 acrylic on canvas
“a murmuration, as ever unnoticed” A farmer works the dirt along the treeline with a Farmall. Overhead and to the West, a flock of starlings in a liquid formation. When he was a kid, he could watch them fly all day. Now he can only look down towards the dirt of an Earth that holds no promise, but luck. 30”x40” acrylic on canvas
"all great and precious things are lonely." -John Steinbeck. This scene isn't quite true to life. I ran across the pickup parked permanent outside a filling station in Soldier, Kansas. It wasn't for sale, and was long retired. Since I couldn't lift it and run away, I decided this was her best option for a change of scenery. She probably would have preferred to look new and pristine, straight off the assembly line. Maybe a kid behind the wheel with pocket money. He didn't deserve her. 24"x30" acrylic on kansas
"a reading of Diderot" The once-proud belfry bequeathed to time, and the river crows that worship at the altar of shiny things. 15"x30" acrylic on canvas.
“pestilence” The carcass of a grain truck lies in repose outside the city limits. As you walk towards it through the sharp and cool grass, all manner of insects herald your arrival. The grasshoppers and the wasps are in cahoots. Today, they have a common enemy. Tomorrow, the truce is over. 20”x24” acrylic on canvas
“the American dream is still alive and well in Burbank” I can hear and smell this painting. It checks off my boxes of "call of the open road" and "i guess you had to be there." A vacation slide from the trip that you don't like to talk about, but still need the occasional reminder as to why. I picked Burbank because that's where all the game shows were. A maybe too long station wagon pulling a maybe too small Airstream. Hope, downsized for travel. If Burbank is a bust, we can try our luck in Aberdeen. I've seen the postcards from Scotland. 24"x36" acrylic on canvas
"okay bones" The Sears-Roebuck kit houses weren't meant to last this long, and the ones that still stand don't mourn the dead that didn't, but they are monuments nonetheless. 20"x20" acrylic on canvas.
"promise of the cool" 24"x36" acrylic on canvas I painted up the horse's proportions to be built like a dump truck, like the one Bugs Bunny rode in the opera. Storm clouds billowing over the shimmer of a swelter. The horse and the clouds have their curves, the landscape sits in a skeletal contrast. The flies are biting, that bodes rain.
"clockwork" I grew up across from the grain elevator in historic Barnes, Kansas. I learned all the ins and outs by age ten, as we were all feral children, and there wasn't much to keep us entertained that didn't involve trespassing. Those are the sorts of qualifications an employer looks for, so it was no surprise when I got a job at Palmer Grain. This painting is neither of those specific dustbins, but there are pieces of both, and a little of Linn and Greenleaf. When the train still ran through it took me to wherever I wanted to go, as long as it was one of those very specific places. 36"x36" acrylic on canvas.
“The minutes leading up to the events of August 11th, 1953” I wanted a sense of foreboding. A woman stands atop a hill outside her home. In one hand, she holds what’s left of the last chicken. In the other, a hatchet. She’s looking back at the house, and doing the math on how far she can get, if she goes through with it. 30"x30" acrylic on canvas.
I'm a vocal proponent of texture, inasmuch and goodsofar as I want my paintings to look like paintings. The textures I built for this slice of Winter come from calling a Mulligan on a previous piece. To lose the shapes I laid a coat of black as primer, intentionally heavy, lots of peaks and valleys. Once that coat set, I drybrushed the new layers, which thoughtfully sent their color saturation to the peaks, leaving the valleys nice and dark. The result looks like it was painted on a weathered vinyl car seat. Bench, not bucket. "It's a fine world, though rich in hardships sometimes." 15x30 acrylic on canvas
It was still the Great Depression for a lot of folks back home, and probably always will be. The history books will tell you it ended around WWII, but the rationing and the tightening of the belts for the lean times never truly went away for those that lived it, and they passed the pain and hungries to the children, of which they all had seven, at last count. The ones that stuck around went mad, and the ones that left took a piece of that with them. They’d chew on the mad to ease the hungries, mindful to spit before the cancer spread too far.
