This Is The End

I'll be starting a painting this week which will be the last one for this project. Five Miles From Times Square was a minor artistic odyssey lasting over 5 years, conceived sometime in the Fall of 2008, officially begun in January 2009 with my first field trip to Snake Hill and the surrounding areas. It involved an unsuccessful campaign for grant money, was caught up in the UPS incident, and produced 18, soon to be 19 paintings in the series.

This blog will take on a new direction, aimlessly wandering across the murky depths of my next artistic journey. If asked whether or not FMFTS was successful, I would have to say yes. My initial goal was 10-12 canvases, and I not only surpassed that, I created a body of work that I can hang my hat on, most of which have been sold.

The next and final image has been selected for the new painting, and work will begin tomorrow evening. I'm not ready to share the subject (it won't be the photo posted below). Maybe I'll do another photo series like Xanadu. My next project is chosen but not planned, but again, I'm not sharing that yet.

Thanks to anyone who has ever read this blog, and especially to anyone who followed the project from start to finish. It hurts to set you free, but you'll never follow me...

My Heart Of Darkness

This river is becoming to me what the Congo River was to Joseph Conrad. The story of this painting, when finished, will center mainly on a play between light and shadow, between seeing and not seeing. Its about how reality is born from patterns of contrasts, what we see, what we feel, what we believe. Love and hate. Good and evil. Life and death.

The Hackensack River snakes through the heart of the New Jersey Meadowlands and highlights the contradictions of human existence. An urban wilderness such as the Meadowlands feels the push and pull of the tides, but also the struggle between Man's needs and wants, between civilization and nature, each rushing headlong into the other, the former turned barbaric, pre-occupied with a savage desire to turn a pristine wetlands into wealth.

I have 3 weeks to finish this painting and start a new one. "The horror..."