Introducing my newest painting:
"Something Small That You Can Later Crush."

10.10.2006

This painting was an experiment.   The idea was to create a painting that reacts to another artist's ideas (Matt Geirhart) that he shared with me through his writing/ choice of music.  So this painting was my reaction in paint.

My friend, Matt Geirhart wrote the following and asked me to respond in paint:

In looking at most of your paintings, mostly there is distance. Your last painting of Austin seemed to be a painting of distance.  Almost like you were looking for the end of Austin.  Now I suppose you are looking for the beginning of Houston.  

I think I feel of have felt the same with my relationship with God from time to time.  Almost, like I wanted to find God again- for the first time. Let my ideas and understanding be as simple as can be, but also as malleable as a new friend.

This is why, just to begin, I want you to find something small.  Something you can later crush.

He also included this visual and a mix CD:

 I kept thinking about the idea of "something small that you can later crush." And my first thought was a sandcastle.  They are so fun to make and take all this effort and then, boom, the tide comes in or some yahoo with 4*4 drives right through it.  I chose to paint my fictional sandcastle in all its glory before it gets crushed.  I also decided to make it look a bit like Houston.  The tall building is the one that helps me figure out where I am here because you can see it from really far away and it also has this weird strobe light on top of it at night.  It is my beacon to help me find my way to my new home. And I think that last Sunday was the first time I actually called Houston "home" out loud.  It is still real weird for me.  So anyway, I guess if you want to, you can say that this painting is about the temporal nature of life.  Things are beautiful in their time and then boom- time for the tide to come in and to start all over again.  

"What does the worker gain from his toil?  I have seen the burden God has laid on men. He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the hearts of men; yet they cannot fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for men than to be happy and do good while they live.  That everyone may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all his toil—this is the gift of God.  I know that everything God does will endure forever; nothing can be added to it and nothing taken from it. God does it so that men will revere him." -the Bible, Ecclesiastes 3:9-14

See this painting in progress here.