A series of new larger watercolors mid 2016

    These paintings are part of a series completed during early 2014 to mid-2016. I feel certain the strength of these works represent the aims in my watercolors I wanted to achieve. My abstract Organic sculptural Forms tend to float in balance over harsh structured backgrounds. creating a kind of harmony and rhythm using forms such as angled shapes, sharp lines, and circles that come together, forming a delicate balance of both, form and color. 
When weaving delicate bamboo over and under solid shapes and sharply angled lines, I feel it adds another form of organic concepts. 



                                              (1)  Italian Fabriano watercolor paper. 
                                 Picture Size 291/2"X 221/4"- Frame Size 40"X 323/4"

                                       
                                                  (2)     Watercolor on Fabriano Paper
                                 Picture Size 291/2" X 221/2" - Frame Size 40" X 32 3/4"

                                     
                                            (3)           Watercolor on Fabriano Paper
                                   Picture size 22 1/2" X 29 1/4" - Frame Size 32 3/4" X 40"

                                     
                                        (4)    Charcoal - Pastels on heavy drawing stock
                                      Picture Size 23" X 32 1/2" - Frame Size 26" X 35 1/2"

                                       
                                             (5)      Watercolor on Fabriano Paper
                                  Picture Size 29 1/2" X 22 1/4" - Frame Size 40" X 32 3/4"

                                             
                                                  (6)     Watercolor on Fabriano Paper
                                        Picture Size 29 1/2"X 22 1/4 - Frame Size 40" X 32 3/4"

                                             
                                                (7)     Watercolor on Arches Paper
                                picture Size 41" X 35 1/2 - Frame Size 52 1/2" X 46 1/2"

                                   
                                          (8)Charcoal - Pastels on heavy stock drawing Paper.
                                  Picture Size 25 1/2" X 38 1/2" Frame Size 29 1/2" X 42 1/2"

                                     
                                        (9)  Waxed Watercolor on Drawing Paper Stock
                                 Picture Size 17 1/2" X 22 3/4" - Frame Size 27" X 32 1/4"

                                     
                                       (10)  Waxed Watercolor on Drawing Paper Stock
                                  Picture Size 22 3/4" X 17 1/2"  -  Frame Size 32 1/4" X 27"

                                   
                                          (11)  Charcoals - White Pastel on Drawing Paper
                                                          Picture Size 17 1/2" X 16"
                             

Wood by it's own nature has drawn me to it since my early teens. I had before that point been crafting sculptures since I can practically remember life itself. At age four, I remember my mother giving me Plasticine clay to play with. 

I would make my own objects for playing. My siblings had toys such as little cars and train sets.

But still, I wanted more and more clay to create my own objects. 

It seemed fairly early in that I begin to fashion the human body from my clay. 

This, I feel certain propelled my interest in the arts. When I was ten, my parents gave me a set of oil paints for Christmas. My eye's depth perception had already trained itself to see and calculate in three dimensions and the manner in which my creations came about were set. 

My obsession for sculpture manifested into a career. 

Sculpting in wood developed into a passion when I was age 14 and visiting an older cousin. One evening, I walked into his work-space, he'd classified as his studio. I asked why he was doing sculpture in wood. His answer drew me into his world of thinking. He said he wanted to leave something behind after he dies. I thought that was so profound, but also knew he was far too young to die anytime soon.  

Many years have gone by since that encounter. And my own lust for art soon became my career. While in my early 20's, I felt ready to head off to New York city to see what I could do about it. 

I needed a job, and the only job I felt I truly would enjoy, was working in an art gallery. 

I felt anything to do with the arts would be acceptable.  I found my first job on Madison Ave. working in an art gallery and made several friends in the art world. I became gallery director a year later. I had grown bored, so I moved on to another gallery which offered more challenges and I was offered manager with far more opportunities. 

 The  gallery was on, Madison Avenue, one block from the Metropolitan Museum, where I'd spend many days having lunch and afterward, I'd wonder from room to room, studying the art on the walls until it was time to return to my job. I knew from that beginning that no matter what I would do in my art, it had to be of the same quality that I was studying in the museums. I feel maybe this  is one area lost with many educators, the importance of presentation at it's highest qualities. 

As several years had passed, I took a trip to Santa Fe to gain some knowledge about my first wax sculptures cast in bronze. It was on a very cold January day that I fell in love with melting metals, and observing how it gone from wax to bronze in a very short period of time. I was spellbound and hooked and there was nothing I could do about it. 

It would become like a drug, at least, it was my drug of choice. Casting bronze was so spectacular, it was all I wanted to do to have my own art foundry. I would not give up until I made it happen. 

My passion for sculpting in wood and stone developed slowly. Mainly, due to its presentational difficulties. Once I discovered bronze, that problem was resolved. Connect my wood or stone sculptures to Bronze as a way of mounting for presentation. For me, it was practically impossible to properly display my wood, stone, ceramic or other similar materials, used in my sculptures without a proper base or stand, and bronze tends to lend itself perfectly and became my choice of materials for this purpose, and in doing so, opened avenues for my carved sculptures that I never had before. Once I made this discovery, I returned to wood again during the early 1980's. Of course, the discovery of bronze as a new medium held such a fascination that I immersed myself in it and jumped straight in and mastered every facet of the process and since, have had seven art foundries where I produced my own works. 

Bronze had opened up a brand new beginning to my world of sculpture and art in general. It gave me a certain freedom to experiment, play so to speak, have fun at whatever whimsy hit me at the moment. I begin doing far more exploring, in objects of art. I designed lamps, lighting devices of all sorts, tables in bronze and glass excited me. To own one's art foundry certainly allowed for any creative mind to expand many new possibilities and speculate as far as possible. As I fell asleep at nights, my mind would go crazy with ideas, things I could create in metal, and could not wait to wake up and head straight out to my art studio and foundry the following morning.

On this Blog. I will add several photographs of my past works in bronze and other mediums, from small table top pieces to large-scale monumental works, of which two are as large are 16feet tall. Of course, these days I try no to involve myself in new works so large, at least for now. Until I feel I'm truly ready to see myself truly wanting to be in those circumstances. One of the big reasons for not wanting to do them is that time is an important element for all artists. It's exhausting to expel so much energy and receiving so little in return. I feel a certain kind of intimacy creating sculptures on a smaller scale. It's almost like spending time alone in a studio with a lover. Touching, caressing, holding the sculpture near, it's exciting, it gives a great deal of comfort. 

A friend living near to my studio called me to see storm damage to his large Cherry Tree. I saw large pieces, already cut. One big limb got my attention right off. This sculpture is the results of that large chunk of Cherry wood. I had to wait about three years before the wood was ready. Once it was ready, I could see right away what it was going to be. It reminded me or a very large sea shell. Gorgeous curves, lines moving throughout were simple and uncomplicated. This large piece is a result of the fork in the tree where two limbs begin, this was cut just before the separation of those two limbs.

Many of my works in wood relate to shapes of the sea, and those,  I call Sea Forms. This larger work has a floor-standing bronze base and is about six feet high. 

When I lived in Dallas, a pecan tree had fallen due to high winds. As I had it cut, I asked the man to save me two longer pieces. Those two chunks were taken with me to Virginia where I spent the next ten years casting many bronzes and carving new wood and stone pieces. This is one of the Pecan chunks I saved. It took a very long time to understand just how I had to present it, and I accidentally discovered hanging it on the wall would be the best. Once I made that discovery, I could well see many of my works were meant to be wall-hanging sculptures.

I study the raw wood over a period of time before any carving begins, Allowing the wood itself to lead the way. Its grain, the texture and the general feel of its structure should always be respected at all cost. I make no attempt to force shapes, but rather, shapes tends to somehow surface, in a kind of magical way that I've never fully understood. When I carve, it's as if I'm in some kind of trance. I have no clue as to how or why certain things happen. They just do, it is as if art somehow has a life of its own. In some respects, I see it as if it an egg, once you remove all it's shell parts, life begins. 

 I find pieces of wood that need little to bring out its qualities. I enjoy the highest level of integrity in the finish of my wood sculpting and like to bring it to it's highest polish, as if like jewelry. For me, this allows the grain of the wood to show off to its fullest. 

A few earlier works in wood and bronze and my foundries. 

                                       Sea Forms. Cherry wood mounted to bronze. 1996 

Bronze Electric light fixture with a glass dome. 

24 inches tall.  

Front View 

Side veiw of Bronze lighting 

This project built in clay to be cast in 
bronze for a Door Pull in Miami, Florida

Large bronze lighting device for gas. Dallas
Set of ten cast 56 inches tall.  

Pot Rake for a client in Dallas
Bronze and Stainless steel. 

 Door pulls and lock cover designed and made 
for a client in Virginia
Bronze 18k inches tall

My son and I working the wax for my first 
Veterans project in Virginia 
Nine feet tall Bronze Ribbon to be 
mounted on a 16-foot granite

Tex Ritter Project in Bronze at my foundry 
in Dallas. Horse is nine feet long and eight feet tall.  

The Faun. Bronze finished patina in my foundry
in Dallas.  Next to it is a Bronze table I made 
at my art foundry in Mexico. 

Applying patina on nine-foot bronze for a 
project in my Virginia  art foundry. 

A project in clay for a large life size bronze 
of Carlos Castillo.  

The finished 16 foot tall granite with the 
Bronze nine-foot ribbon mounted in 
Virginia  

I view looking outside part a bronze casting 
of the woman of the fountain which installed 
in Johnson City, Tennessee.  

The finished sculpture for the Veterans park in 
Virginia - The Tree Of Peace.  

A worker taking a break in my art foundry in Virginia 
in 2011.  

The clay original of the Rabbit race in my 
studio in Virginia
Three quarter life size

A sixteen-foot horse from Los Colinas, Texas. 
We cut the side from so as to replace the inner 
stainless steel support system.  

The horse after I finished it at my art foundry 
in Dallas, Texas.  2001

The rubber mold for the nine-foot ribbon 
for the Veteran park in Virginia 

 The are finished with my matching patina of 
the cut out from the horse from Los Colinas, Texas. 

I am applying the patina to the hind quarters of the 
16-foot horse from Los Colinas, Texas in the back of 
my art foundry in Dallas. 2001 

A full veiw of the Peace Memorial for the 
Veterans Park in Virginia.  

My wife, Martha visits me at my art foundry in 
Virginia in 2002.  

I made this for my wife, Martha. I found the piece of Olive Wood

when we lived in, Italy in 1985. I did not finish this work until 

2012. It is mounted on bronze with Jade. 

I titled it. ' The Of Life' .

     The series of watercolors I am working on at present are direct influences of my sculptures created in wood, which are   non-objective abstract forms representing, continuous mass in the freedom of line and movement throughout organic shapes. 

     I've enjoyed working with watercolor painting since my middle teens when I studied nights at special art class' for a short period. I was drawn to it maybe for various reasons, The papers, it translucent colors, its fast pace, and a quick sense of  urgency, which I still find exciting to this day. It is a medium that demands we learn a good amount of control, and sure of what we're searching for, and then will we see as it tends to come together on its own. Watercolors lend's itself to continuity and that wonderful sense of freedom and gesture. 
     Below are a few of my sculptures and paintings. I am by no means a classic watercolorist, but rather enjoy it for my own needs of effects, resulting exactly in what I wanted to achieve.  
       As I'm working, I feel a sense of energy as I set a feel of control for my backgrounds and the openness of an organic freedom of movement in the foreground, leaving elements of   magical surprise that I discover with each painting and sculpture.   

Tree Of Life. Olive Wood, Jade, and Bronze.  1985-2012 . This work was 27 years in the making. As I've mentioned earlier, if I run into a problem with a sculpture or painting, drawing,  whatever. I do not tend to become overly concerned about it. I simply move on to another project.  reason for this long a period is due only to the fact that I could never decide on how the presentation should be. As in most instances, I happened upon it by accident. It is finished with 1,000 grit sandpaper, five coats of fine wood oil, and polished with three coats of Renaissance wax.

This small pen and ink watercolor dates around 2008 as a 

drawing and finished in watercolors in 2014. It is framed 

in a gold antique style under and dark heavy raw silk matting. 

This work I did early on in this series. Date around mid-2013 

Burrel wood, frame and heavy raw silk mat. 

Here are Tryptich l, ll and lll along with Diptych l as my first attempts in this series using one of my  favorite handmade, rough watercolor paper. I was so pleased with the results, I purchased as much of the paper as I could stock up with. I can not wait to continued these concepts with this series.

                                          

'Under A Japanese Sun'  Watercolor on drawing the paper.  Art Work Size 18 X 24 inches.