Thursday, January 11, 2007

beginnings

After college I eventually found myself at a 24 hour gas station working the late shift. One night,,,one morning I began a series of portraits of different people I found in magazines or newspapers or the backs of books. This was the very beginning of my use of color pencils and it began a long exploration of being an artist.

The series eventually became 59 portraits on 11"x18" paper. I had a show at a small gallery called the Omphale in Calumet Michigan where I got to hang the set together. In time I moved on to other works and soon decided to stick with one medium to see what I could learn. The color pencil became my favored tool. The following series grew into the 3 larger green ladies in my earlier posts and I eventually began an exploration of the mandala, still with my trusty pencils. The people series gets taken out now and then and each time I notice a stronger response from people who see them.

Ultimately I will try to publish them in a book form. That will be the dream final form for this series. It is a contemplation on what makes humans human, evolution and meanings. Incidentally, I originally chose green because I thought it would be funny. My continuing studies and reading revealed a common use of green as the color of the heart chakra.

these are the people