Greetings from Baytown (formerly known as "Cartown" back in the big-shouldered, big-hair eighties). These posts exist because i have the freedom of information act as my inspiration and a wife who may not understand but is supportive anyway. I am - or perhaps used to be - an artist, stuck in an unenviable position -  between the bravery of creation and the cowardice of corporate anonymity.  The last painting finished was about two months ago; before that it had been about five years. I long for the times when i couldn't wait to take possession of things/beings by the sheer intimacy and attack of painting. Perhaps i've learned to respect things a bit more now and objectify less those things dear to me. Have i given up the idea that visual expression is important to me? Not at all. I've taken it upon myself to remediate by immersing myself in the act of drawing - to understand visually both the appearance and underlying structure of things. I've become less slavish to the dictum set forth by my aesthetic mentor, Edward Hopper, and taken a more playful, but no less serious, approach to drawing from real life. 

At my disposal are any number of things that are important - work-related minutae: from a business-phone, a calculator, stacks of paper, etc - (things on my desk) to the more home-related barrage of visual stimuli: stacks of books, scraps of paper, keys, cell-phones, photos, etc. As Hopper did, i've looked to things to establish my place in the world, made friendships/kinships with the inanimate and expressed the 3d as something flat but no less illusional (what is "real" anyway).

I hope, with this web-log, to make some sort of progress toward a sustaining, and perhaps lucrative, "career" in the arts. I welcome any and all comments (as long as they don't destroy my delicate sensitivity) that are constructive and meaningful. Thanks for your attention.

Respectfully submitted,

Jim