Introducing my newest painting:
Red Wall on South Congress.

"It's the little things.." 

That's what I always say anyway.  And that is what inspired this painting really.  As I was driving down South Congress, here in Austin Texas, I noticed this amazing shadow on the side of one of the buildings there. I knew immediately that I wanted to paint it. So a few days later I brought my camera to the spot and took a bunch of photos of it.  

In the end, this painting became an experiment in composition. At the time I was creating it I was also writing my Statement of Purpose. I was thinking a lot about creating an interaction between my painting and the viewer. So in this painting I intentionally made the two pieces that don't fit together harmoniously. All that I give the viewer to connect the paintings is color and line. Thus the viewer must connect the two sections in their mind. I think of this process as visual dissonance. Dissonance is a musical term that means an unresolved note or chord. Like, for instance, in jazz music when the song keeps going and your ear keeps listening for that note that signals the end of the song. Well, in my art I attempt to create the same sort of expectation in the eye of the viewer and I want them to look expectantly to try to figure out the resolution within themselves. (I recently made this connection between my art and music while reading the book Blue Like Jazz by Donald Miller.)  

Sidenote: I have no idea who the people are in my painting.  So the moral of the story: Be careful what you do in Austin... you might end up in a painting.  

See this painting in progress here!

ALSO: I have 3 new photos posted in my photo gallery!

"I never liked Jazz music because Jazz music doesn't resolve.  But I was 
outside the Bagdad Theator in Portland one night when I saw a man 
playing the saxophone.  I stood there for fifteen minutes, 
and he never opened his eyes.

After that I liked jazz music.  

Sometimes you have to watch somebody love something before you can love it yourself. " 

-Author's Note, Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller.

***

"In America, the first generation out of slavery invented jazz music.  
It is a free-form expression.  It comes from the soul, and it is true."  

-Blue Like Jazz, by Donald Miller


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detail of painting

detail of painting

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