Front of Card

Artist's Notes

"Mulligan's Travels"

A woman had a funny photograph of her dog hanging it's head out the car window. She wondered if I could do a painting around such an image. I didn't have to struggle with this painting at all. The landscape pieces just nicely locked in around the dog's face. I enjoyed doing this painting from beginning to end.

PB111

"Crazy Eyes"

Any grocery store has an aisle devoted simply to cat and dog items. These animals can play such a major role in our lives. At times, they can appear to be the most sane, constant living thing in our lives. On other occasions, they're just crazy, running all around the house or backyard, galloping about like a mad horse.

PB112                                                                

"Buddha"

When I first met my soon- to- be wife, she had a wonderful cat by the name of Buddha. He was one of those animals that thought he was human. Oddly enough, I had done this painting before I met Buddha. Though my image is a slimmer version of our Buddha cat, the markings were the same.

PB113

"The Perfect Chicken"

This painting was inspired by a visit to a local country fair. I like looking at the animals in particular. What I find interesting about chickens is that one of them will have a blue ribbon on its cage, but as far as I can tell it looks exactly like all the other chickens. How do you judge a chicken? I found a simple diagram that showed the areas a judge checks for on a chicken. Those areas you can see in my painting marked by a glowing star. My perfect chicken stands under her egg-shaped light as though she was about to receive an academy award. In front of her is a road. Will she cross it? And why?

PB114

"Forest Journey"

There are 20 acres of woods next door to our house in Sisters. Twice a day I walk our dog, Zula, through those woods to a nearby stream. I'm often surprised at how different it can look depending on the time of day or the weather. Woodpeckers, owls, Canadian Geese, quail and Turkey Vultures can often be seen flying about. Most of the time, however, it is a place of quiet retreat.

PB115

"Holy Cat"

I was living in Greece, studying a particular style of leaping animal motif found on a variety of Neolithic artifacts. Archeologists called this style the "Flying Gallop". While taking a break from my studies, I stepped outside and found my cat sunning himself on the concrete patio in this same pose. I felt as though a gift from the past was being given to me. Soon afterwards, I started doing a series of cats in this pose, using it as a way to teach myself watercolors.

PB116

"Bunny Love"

I had been teaching art at an elementary school in Klamath Falls, Oregon when, at the end of the day, a teacher came into the room holding a white rabbit in her arms. It struck me as a powerful image and I filed it away in my imagination. Many years later, it emerged as an Hispanic farmer embracing the rabbit with the same arms I used in my "Abundance" painting.

PB117

"Abundance"

The client for "The Gardener's Dream" painting wanted a larger version on the theme of bringing fruits and vegetables in from the garden. I incorporated designs from the stained-glass windows in their house in the basket weave as well as the border design from their dining room upholstery. The realistic faces and hands are in contrast to the flatness of the rest of the piece much like a Byzantine icon.

PB118 

"The Gardener's Dream"

A client wanted a painting for their new house but I just didn't know what to do. Then I had a dream where the client appeared before me, holding his arms full of carrots and said, "Why don't you paint these?" And so I did!

PB119

"Chagall's Garden"

I did the painting at the end of the summer, when the sunflowers in my garden were in full bloom. I wanted to use the big shapes of the flowers in a way that reminded me of a colorful Hawaiian shirt. The back image of the man reminded me of the way older Greek men often walked around with their hands folded into one another, often holding worry beads. I had lived on the island of Paros for some time and often saw this kind of figure. But who was this person? Though the artist most associated with sunflowers is Van Gogh, he had not lived to be an old man so I decided on another artist famous for his flowers, Marc Chagall, who had lived a long, productive life.

PB120