Spilling new "Tea"

2025, a quarter of a century into a future I never thought I’d see. When I was a kid, even 2020 seemed like an unimaginable horizon. But here we are, 2 and a half decades beyond that. My mind spins.

In the past year, due to health issues of my almost centenarian mother, I have become co-inhabitant of her NJ house. This provides me with opportunities (excuses) to spend a lot of time exploring the state of New Jersey. Though I grew up there, I never took much interest in it as a place, except insofar as it was adjacent to Philadelphia and New York City.

Some non-Southern California things about New Jersey:

Rivers

Deer are everywhere

The air sounds different

Poison ivy

Lantern flies

Jug handles

Jersey Shore accents…

My new painting, “Tea”, was inspired by a coffee shop I visited in Asbury Park. A young woman was drinking tea and looking at her cel phone. Nothing more bog standard than that. But, I thought the plants and art around her, with her amid it, made a great composition. You can see how many changes the image went through before I arrived at the finished painting. Sometimes paintings almost finish themselves, like this one. Other times I feel like I’m digging for treasure with a teaspoon. But, either way, I work at it until I get there. 🥄

Here is a short document of (some of) the steps from start to finish towards creating this new painting, “Tea.” As you can see, between 6 & 7 there was a big shift. I felt the blue/green background from the photo was too wishy washy in the painting.

Enter: Vermillion.

“Tea” 20” x 16” oil on canvas

Another New Jersey thing we dont have in Souther CA is… Horseshoe crabs

In August I visited a small beach on the Raritan Bay, just to sit in the sun for a while. I was amazed to find hundreds of horseshoe crab shells littering the beach. At first, I thought this was evidence of a great die-off. Then I realized the shells were “sheds’ – the left-over husks of crab growth spurts. The young crabs molt out of their old shells, dissolving enzymes and calcium from the shells to use building their new shells, which takes a couple of days.

These are some of the molts I brought home from the beach:

Which inspired this small assemblage painting, “Horseshoe Crabs”

I call my paintings “Pop Folk Art” because they are about capturing moments of the ordinary (folk) in contemporary (pop) life, and building personal narratives around them. You can see more of my “pop folk art” paintings here.

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If you would like to see my art in person, you can now visit me at my new studio in Ventura at Vita Art Center, Studio 6. Great parking, and located in Ventura’s Main St. business district which is filled with restaurants and galleries. We will also be hosting twice yearly studio tours, so subscribe 👆 to get news on dates and times.

I look forward to seeing you!

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Watching:

Mr. Spouse and I just saw the new “Nosferatu” last night. If you are a fan of classic horror, and early Nosferatu/Dracula movies/lore, you will really like this film, it is so0o good. 👹

We also saw “A Complete Unknown” a slice of Bob Dylan’s early departure-from-folk years. My memory of this time period comes from seeing Pete Seger perform at the Clearwater Sloop Fest when I was a burgeoning hippy camper at Trywoodie in Hyde Park, NY. Chalamet made an excellent Dylan.

Reading:

I’m currently reading “Memory Wall” a book of shorts from the author of “All the Light We Cannot See.” Worth reading.

Listening:

After watching the “Yacht Rock Dockumentary” (on HBO) about a genre of music I associated with Jimmy Buffet, tequila sunrises and flip flops (it’s not), I dove into QuestLove’s Yacht Rock music playlist, here. 4 stars, very good “music to paint to.”

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That’s all for me right now, gotta run. Happy New Year! Talk soon, and subscribe!