Category: anecdotes

Pre-dawn moon

When I woke at 6:00 AM, I thought a helicopter was outside my bedroom shining a searchlight onto the shore. The authorities still haven’t found the body of the man drowned in a recent boating accident. A helicopter searched my shoreline a fortnight ago looking for his body. I thought they were searching once again.…

Christmas season 2021

As with every Christmas week in NE Ohio, the weather is dismal and gray. When I saw this gold stuff spread about our living room, I grabbed my camera to memorialize the strange event. “What is it,” my daughter asked in amazement? “Beats me,” my son shrugged. “I think it’s sunlight,” my wife suggested. By…

Yesterday

Yesterday I was late to the studio. I dragged my lazy butt into the studio at 8:30. Morning people know how head-shakingly lazy that hour is. I painted until lunch at 12:00. After lunch, I was back in the studio until 3:00. The studio sessions were good–better than the previous day where my energy was…

My visit to Cedar Point

Cedar Point, a Disneyland-like park on Ohio’s Lake Erie, is only a half-hour trip from my house. I picked the perfect day for my visit last week The weather was fine and because it was a school day, the crowds were smaller than normal. Finding parking was easy and the line to get in was…

Beach market photos

I use my Nikon Z7 camera all the time. Nearly all my paintings include elements from my own photographs, typically mashups of several photographs. Summer is a great time to take photographs, of course. I stay alert for festivals, fairs, or other events that promise to provide a harvest of usable photos. Next week, I…

Come Spring

The backyard trees are in bloom. Soon, their bones will be hidden beneath their green plumage. Although it can still snow in NE Ohio in early April, this photo from my kitchen against the background of a peaceful Lake Erie brings a smile,

Dreams

When I go to bed, I often try to think about a problem with a painting. Then my consciousness runs another stream in the background. Before I fall asleep, the solution to the problem occurs to me–‘ah ha!’ Sometimes the solution comes in the morning, and sometimes it doesn’t come. However, as interesting as this…

Screwed

I’m screwed. My backlog is out of hand; I can’t possibly keep up. The ideas keep coming. It’s not by my will. It seems like ‘something’ outside of me is making paintings and I’m merely the assistant. It surprises and worries me that the ‘something’ doesn’t care that many paintings do not get finished. I…