Been a long time

Yes, I have been too busy to blog. I've been painting. I had the best winter painting sunny paintings of Venetian laundry lines, all winter long. I just sent off the works for my first solo show: Hanging Out in Venice at the Rose Gallery Fine Art, Hudson, NY. Everyone who reads this blog is invited to the opening reception on May 31st from 5-8. www.rosegalleryfineart.com

It's like sending 19 children into the world. Each one is my favorite for a different reason. They look different and they do different things. I tried to introduce a different element into each painting to keep them fresh and prevent them from being formulaic. It was fun. It was challenging. It was satisfying. This painting above is called A Tale of Two Families. It's whimsical and fun. I like this painting because I just stopped painting when it made me smile.

What ever happened to my encaustic painting plan? Well I have been thinking about it all winter, in between painting laundry lines. On June 6 th I will go to the England Wax Symposium at Montserrat College of Art for two days of lectures and workshops. I have some ideas and I'm sure I'll come back with more. The weather is warm enough now that I can start setting my encaustics up outside, necessitated by the lack of ventilation in my dungeon studio.

Last weekend I participated in Newton Open Studios. I was pretty pleased by the response of visitors, the purchases they made and the interesting opportunities that presented themselves. However, there has been something on my mind since last year ; that is the painters in Newton who shadow me and my work. I guess that I just want to say that creating art is about originating, not about imitating. When I took lessons from my teacher, Ed Stitt, I didn't want to paint like him. I wanted to learn how to paint. So all you students out there, don't honor you teachers by trying to paint like them. Take what they teach you and paint like yourself. Be an originator (like my guy Mike Finnegan www.finneganart.com) not an imitator.

In closing I want to say a "thank you" to Claudia. She came by at open studios . She was a wonderful visitor who told me that she enjoyed reading my blog. Well, she inspired me to get up and writing again. I didn't think ANYONE read my blog.