The Story

It was after I had sent off My Most Recent Proposal for Cincinnati project, and then the project entitled “4” to the directors of CAM, CAC and AAC, that I applied for a Guggenheim Fellowship.

I made My Proposal and the various bodies of work mentioned within it, central to my Fellowship Application. This would be the third time that I had applied.

As with the other two times, I didn’t think that there was any way that I would not win. I’m always like this when launching a project or a show. I’m always expecting the entire world to change.

But I didn’t win (this story will be told in Guggenheim Three which will be the third in My Fellowship Proposal Project) and since I completely thought that I would win, I had no back-up plan.

I turned to Cincinnati Art Galleries because I didn’t know what else to do. They were the only gallery in Cincinnati that I knew of, that I hadn’t already approached, nor had I ever included them on the mailing list for any of my other projects.

I just never thought of them as being a contemporary gallery. Their brand is much more about dead artists and faux gold frames.

But I had nowhere else to go, so I made the call, and Margaret answered the phone. I had no idea that she was working there.

Margaret and I go way back. She has played a major role in my artistic life in Cincinnati since my earliest gallery show, and a lot of it was in the trenches. Everywhere I go in Cincinnati, I seem to attract a lot of political heat.

Anyway.

When I first approached CAG I had just completed my 100 Apples project, in which I had painted 100 individual apples. This being the case, I had a lot of apples laying around my studio.

I began to notice them in groupings, as if they were noticing each other for the first time. I had a similar experience with my brothers and sisters after the recent death of our last parent, and now here I was coming out of the isolation of the studio and joining the CAG family.

So I did this series of apple groupings, but the people at CAG didn’t seem to be too excited by them. I had met them just prior to their Art Academy 150th Anniversary Show (which I was hastily invited to join) but when I specifically asked that my apple grouping paintings be included, they were not.

The star of the show when it came to my work was a crosswalk painting. Someone bought it right away, just before someone else who also wanted to buy it.

“This is the kind of thing our clients like” said Margaret.

I personally felt that the sale was manufactured just to get me to go that way, but this was Margaret who has been through a lot over the years on my behalf, and it’s not like I don’t have deep history of painting NYC crosswalks.

The problem is that I don’t live in NYC any more. I live in New Jersey, 30 minutes away.

One other time I had visited NYC with my camera with the intention of doing a new NYC series, and I came up empty handed. It was like I felt nothing. Not living there, the city wasn’t mine any more.

My experience with the city since moving has mostly been one of being in a car driving around in it, so I ended up doing a short series of paintings and pastels from photos shot through the windshield of our car.

But this time this was for Margaret, and so I thought that with that motivation, the inspiration would be there.

This series is the result of three photo shoots. I had no problem getting into it. I told Margaret right off that my new motivation is to share with Cincinnatians my love of NYC; and that through the process I want to tell them all I’ve learned while being away.

Prior to all of this, I had gone something like eight years without doing hardly any painting at all.

The reason why was because I had become so sensitive that I couldn’t let go of my paintings. I’d keep going back into them 15, 20 times, always seeing and feeling more and more.

I just couldn’t do it any more. I switched to drawing cartoons specifically because they were fast and fun. The work poured out of me.

When I started this series, the same thing happened again. It took me 4 1/2 months to finish the first two paintings (the smallest) in the series.

I knew I couldn’t start another one, so I switched to drawing. There are 21 drawings in the Margaret’s Crosswalks series (see below).

Instead of using charcoal and pastel like my earlier cityscape drawings, I used color markers and color pencil. With the change of medium, it was like the drawings more closely approached what I was doing in my paintings.

When I went back to painting, it was the painting that approached the drawing. I’m painting quicker, more improvisational, much more impressionistically now.

I love this series.

I remember thinking that I wanted it to be 100 in length, making it possibly my last. I love the metaphor involved.

I found it to be a fascinating journey, one in which I completely changed the way I approach my painting.

But for now, it is a series that has come to an end, as my inspiration has shifted course.

I’ll be debuting my Universe Series, possibly in the fall / winter of 22.

1. 21. 22