I am guided by the birds in my eyecorner. Let me explain:
I paint the little things around me, the tiny glimpses that bring me solace: the tree leaf between season, the sweetness of afternoon. I take these scraps, these contributions to serenity, and I jigsaw them into storyboards. And so I tell the tale of innocent moments, tinged with the things innocent moments are tinged with: misgiving, quiet turmoil, gloom.
I am a self educated painter. I have found such lonely joy in forging my own style, using my own eyes. My artist materials began as the the cast offs of a blue collar existence: scrap wood, left over house paint. Industrial surfaces that have lent me their heft, their solidity. These some years later, I remain true to these same humble elements.
In fact, the end of day finds these bits and pieces emptied from pocket and laid in row next to tattered sketchbooks: castoffs from industry and trees, tiny cuts of wood, corners of magazines, blurred photographs, feathers and nails. These become plays, picnics, funerals, songs, laid upon my studio shelves and tables in compulsive orders. Narratives. Muses. And then I paint them.
I mean, then, I paint the stories they tell to me.
After a sad and nervous-making year I settled into a familiar haunt, Oregon Hill, and began to again paint in earnest.
The paintings in Nickle attest to these new and familiar surroundings, as well as the visual therapy of ospreys and owls, plants and houses. The James River.
These paintings are diaries, and postcards. As I relearn to stride this world, I paint a heartfelt ‘wish you were here’ to myself.
