THE FIELD BEYOND (AN HOMAGE TO WOLF KAHN)

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​The Field Beyond has a quiet sentimentality. On the right, an old barn stands as a piece of American archeology contrasted against the field beyond. I passed this scene many times before I realized its significance to me and the need to paint it. After graduating college, I became the assistant to the late Wolf Kahn, the preeminent American painter of barns. As I painted this oil, waves of memories flooded back. I heard faint classical music playing in the background of my subconscious. I felt the memory of Wolf in the play of light on its surfaces. From Wolf I absorbed the sights and smells, the very feeling of being an artist. This painting has a special resonance to me because of his passing last year. He had a very important role in making me the painter I became. Thank you, Wolf, this painting is dedicated to you.

DOWNTOWN MANHATTAN SKYLINE

I recently made an interesting discovery. I own a ship picture, a lithograph on tin, that I purchased with the money from my allowance at the age of 9 years old. It is of the Kaiserina Augusta Victoria of the Hamburg America Line that was used to bring immigrants to America. I always loved this picture. I even painted a self portrait in front of it when I was only 15. As I was spending time writing down my thoughts for this collection of work, I happened to go into the room in my home where this picture hangs today. I was totally stunned to see the intense resemblance to Downtown Manhattan Skyline, totally unintentional. I feel I have come full circle. In this painting, there are the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan and the World Trade Center appearing almost as a colorful man-made mountain range against the seascape of the Hudson River. Layered over all of that is the sepia veil of history. Immigrants, including my forebears, would line the rails of the ocean liners looking for the first glimpse of the skyscrapers of lower Manhattan and the promise of a new life. This painting represents the American dream. The colorful new World Trade Center anchors the oil with the spirit of renewal and optimism.

The Clear August Sky

​Today dawned clear and produced the most beautiful cerulean blue sky. The wind came up on the change of the tide, rustling the water to a deep viridian hue.  I am on the side of the road using the trunk of my Toyota Echo as a table.  I’m looking across Pleasant Bay at the yacht club and moored boats in the distance.  Even though I started the painting as a horizontal, I change my mind in mid-sentence making the painting a vertical.  This necessitates moving all the paint that is now in the wrong place to where it needs to go.  The scraping of the palette knife on the canvas focuses my mind on the act of artistic creation.  I leave the painting open, adjusting the horizon line as I go along.  The painting has an air of spontaneity about it.  Happy colors on a happy day.

Hawthorne's Barn, Provincetown

​Today I painted on the grounds of the original Hawthorne School of Art in Provincetown.  Charles Hawthorne, the founder of one of the first artist colonies in North America, established the school in 1899.  Since then, influential artists such as Hans Hoffman, Norman Rockwell, Franz Kline and Lee Krasner have painted and taught on these hallowed grounds.  I felt a sense of history just roaming around the place.  The original barn, the beautiful flowerbeds and distant views of the great dunes and Cape Cod Bay competed for my artistic attention.  As overwhelmed as I was, I settled on an intimate scene of flowers set against a classic Cape Cod cottage.  This cottage, a relic of centuries past, was once used to house Hawthorne’s students while they studied with the master.  In order to get the right vantage point, I had to dislodge a couple of ducks from their perch.  When starting a painting, I generally try to be at least 30 feet away from the subject (an old Corot mantra).  Unfortunately, for this painting, I had to be much closer thus giving the painting a homier, more intimate feeling.  In order to achieve the results I was after, I had to paint in a more impressionist manner than I normally do.  Bolder strokes of grasses and sky are contrasted by small staccato strokes identifying flowers and leaves.  The painting became a unique image codifying the quintessential spirit of the place.  

The Secret Place

​Yesterday, Al took me to an undisclosed location to paint.  He felt I would really enjoy “his secret place” and he would share it with me on condition that I never divulge its location.  We started off on the main road turning onto progressively smaller roads until we were driving on two sand ruts deep in the seashore.  Apparently, he was taking me to a place that was once a thriving community but was now just a few winding paths through the forest.  After many twists and turns, we came upon a dunescape covered in heather.  A meandering stream was barely visible in the foreground but in the distance one could see a few cottages and the bay and even Provincetown in the distance.  He left me there to paint having shared with me his secret place.