I enjoyed painting this abstract painting, another cover requested by Nash Keune for this collection of stories, The Goddess Within. Nash likes to give color suggestions, and my imagination does the rest. The freedom and request for abstraction helps to stretch my abilities and do things I normally wouldn’t without the prompting of such an open-ended assignment. The childlike joy of it is what makes me enjoy it so much.

This drawing was a challenge to achieve. The simplicity of the line as made by the chalk is the most significant aspect. Redoing it over and over until I was happy that I had achieved a composition worthy of repeated perusal took a while. I enjoy challenges to my typical way of doing things. That is what makes art exciting and worth pursuing.

This painting began as an idea for the cover of Nash Keune’s collection of stories, Woman in White. I started with blotches of background colors, and overlaid with white dashes with a small brush all across the canvas both ways. I like the watery and ethereal feel of it.

This is a portrait of my friend I painted as we watched television. The speed with which I painted it is evident in its style, a style I have come to strive for. To me, the only sin in painting is overpainting, one I’ve committed more than I care to admit. The speedy style works well in this portrait especially, because of the watered down consistency of the acrylics that gives it a translucent and intriguing character.

This was commissioned by my friend and writer, Nash Keune, for the cover of his novel The Griggesville Society. I asked him what colors stood out to him as he thought about his book, and he said emerald green. Painting this on a large canvas was fun, slashing the colors on, and layering the shades, for hours.

The above painting came together naturally in a creative fit of passion. I mostly paint self portraits, because I am the most convenient subject available to me, hence the mirror.

The above is nearly my ideal of what a portrait should be. It invites the eye to wander, and enjoy the colors, shapes, shadows, expression, and objects.

I painted this of my cousin Caleb at my grandparent’s house one night when he was about fourteen years old. He told me he looked possessed by the Devil. I clearly outlined the painting in blue, an approach I typically take to ground myself in a canvas’ space.

I am particularly proud of the above painting that hangs on my parents’ fireplace, given to my father for his birthday. It is a painting of Shakespeare’s collected works on my favorite yellow chair, a chair that I have enjoyed painting more than once (for example, in the portrait of Carlin Taylor above).

This is a painting I did soon after I moved into my second apartment. I am particularly in love with the coffee table in this painting. Also notice the detail of the orange in the bowl.

I painted this with the window and door foremost in mind, with a desire to do my favorite thing, and paint haunting lambency. I also wanted to do a portrait that didn’t show my face at a three-quarters or straight-on perspective. I really like how the left hand over the face turned out. You can see me eyeing you. What is my mood, one may ask, pondering this painting.

This painting has an interesting story, as it is the only painting I’ve done a great deal of in a power outage during a thunderstorm. I held a flashlight in my left hand and painted feverishly with my right, refusing to give up on it. Some might argue it is obvious it was painted in the dark.

Solitude, reading, and thinking are the stuff of independence. You can often find me in a wooden chair at my breakfast table by a lamp.

This is a very simply constructed, but I think worthwhile, self portrait. I painted this when I was about 22, I believe. In my grey hoodie I often sported in those days.

This portrait is a good example of the texture I achieve reusing canvases. I paint over canvases a good deal, several times sometimes. This one has particularly interesting scars, so to speak.