Paintings
 

I occasionally post my website here to show what I'm up to (at least I think I've done so in the past...) I just finished a 4-month run at a Chinese restaurant/jazz dinner club in Madison, NJ. The show was in the Encore Speakeasy downstairs. No exhibits planned for 2023 as of yet.

Thank you SO much for sharing your work, Rick, and congratulations on the show. There's a fair bit to take in, so just to quickly check-in to say that my favourite so far is "Rose City" - I love the street furniture (that clock), and how you've painted the tent roofs very cleanly/strongly & the way the people feel perfectly aligned with the glimpse of city-scape.

I'll spend more time with these in the next few days.

Sarah-Jane

Thanks Sarah-Jane,

Glad you like "Rose City." My daughter's apartment is on the top floor of the building, and she's pestered me to paint it. At first, I was annoyed that the street fair was going on the day I came to sketch. So much detail!

Lately I've been working outside with the actual paint--no intermediate pencil sketching, which is how I went about painting "Rose City". "Punchbowl at Drew University" just underneath it on the website is typical of how those come out. Come to think of it, the sketch for "Rose City" and the punchbowl (glacial) painting were done on the same day, after I sketched my daughter's puppy. When I retire, this will be a typical day ~,:^)

Lately, and for a while going forward, I think, I'm going to concentrate on still life, which are also painted directly. The pencil sketching I mostly do while traveling.

Thanks for the response!

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This is a pleasure to browse, Rick. Ever since I saw the cover of your long poem “Huncke” I have enjoyed your work. I like the interplay of color and texture and focus. I like, too, the subject matter you choose to paint — in particular your Pinocchio representations (the Barrel one is fantastic).
Others I like are Hoboken Homage, Attic Guest Room, Three Kings, Amaryllis, Self Portrait, (the one with the double image of the glasses) and my favorite is the one that is your website masthead (with Pinocchio and that fantastic chorus line propped on the typewriter.)

There are many others that are nearly abstract that I love, too. (Ravine, Lost Day, a couple of the Marine and Lake Landscapes)

What I like about your style is the messy, dark density of it. So much detail can be gleaned from so little detail. Thickly, delicately painted, in my view. Great shards of paint applied thickly. And I like the rusted iron feel to it all, with a few notable exceptions when the blue sky appears or sunny yellow.

I have always loved the story of Pinocchio and had great affection for all the characters. growing up. I traveled to Italy awhile back and became enamored with the story and history of Pinocchio. (As I recall it was in the town of Lucca that they have a shop and museum dedicated to Pinnocchio) I became smitten with the theme and myth and came back with visions of opening a cafe I would name Geppetto’s that would sell gelato, Italian coffee, cookies and pastries, selected oddities like wind-up clocks, with bookshelves lined with children’s fairytale books, figurines and hand puppets of Pinocchio and other characters from the story. It was a great dream. I toyed with plans for it for awhile but nothing came of it. Had it ever come to fruition I would have gobbled up your Pinocchio artwork. But it wound up a dead dream. I wrote a series of 100-word obituaries that included one for my (dead) dream of opening the cafe. A proper burial for it I guess : )

Really nice work.



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Thanks Jim,

I appreciate your description of my style. And I am glad to hear there is enthusiasm for Pinocchio in still life paintings. My Pinocchio with the missing foot, purchased in Florence, is in heavy rotation in my studio. As I mentioned to Sarah-Jane, I think I am moving into a heavy still life season.

Rick

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I hold my breath sometimes when I go out on a limb and describe how someone's art appears to me. In your case I hope it lines up more or less with your more informed opinion : )

Pinocchio and Pippi Longstocking are my two favorite anti-heroes : )

Looking forward to your gaze on still life.


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Rick, of your still lives, I like the one of the acoustic guitar - partly because of the style of painting, but also because I can make some stories/narrative around some of the objects but not around others - it reads to me like a mixture of symbolic and highly personal, which leaves me feeling interested not only in the picture, but how the objects might link together.

Sarah-Jane

Thanks Sarah-Jane,

I wonder about that painting, because there is so much going on in it. I arrange still lifes as theater, pulling in items in my cabinet somewhat randomly. Often, there is a "nude" as the central character--usually a guitar, mandolin or a cello. I will explain the puppet--it's The Ellington Puppet. My oldest daughter (the former cellist), when she was in fourth grade, had a class assignment for Black History Month: Read a biography, write a report, and make a puppet. Her teacher that year was the best one she had in grade school. Anyway, there is no objective narrative to the painting, but hopefully a subjective/objective one. I am going to concentrate on still life now until it gets warmer outside.

RM

I really like all the Still Life works and the Ancient Mariner in particular. Keep up the good work.
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Alexandra from Art Shippers