The beginning of the end of my corporate rise.
I guess if I'd been more astute I would have realized the
significance of the feelings that represented the changes that were about to
come down during the early part of 1995 and, perhaps, could have made better
use of them. As I look back to the paintings in that time, it's obvious in them
that something was about to happen
At the time I was painting porn videos from line drawings
done while watching with the idea that I could paint motion. I know, I know, it
was a crazy idea but I thought the subject would be so powerful that the line
drawing could be "flashed" on canvas in black and white, and the
ideas
passed on, tongue and cheek. Abstract #1 (1/3/95) is a
result of this process and if you step back far
enough and let your self imagine, it gets the job done.
Abstract
#1 (1/3/95) – Black and White version of sex
The second black and white is about driving to work on dark,
cold January mornings and is Abstract #2 (1/22/95). It portrays the hostile and
very ominous environment that was the winter of 1995.
Abstract
#2 (1/22/95) – Black and White drive into hell.
As I thought I'd been fairly successful with the porn video
process used in Abstract #1, and was continuing forward. I tried a color
version of the same idea using a different tape. Abstract #1 Color is the
result of this effort.
On February 25th, 1995 came a version of Vincent's painting
Crows in a Wheat Field, alleged to be his final work. I had always stayed away
from this picture feeling that if I did a version of it my time with Vincent
would somehow have to come to an end. Happily, this painting exists and I still
talk to Vincent. The changes in the wind were just like the crows, swirling
menaces on the dark sky of what was to come.
Crows
in a Wheat Field (2/26/95)
– The future is right in front of you, if you
can see.
The view from Vincent VanGogh's window at the nut house in
St. Remis was much the same view
as mine from my office as well as my studio. I'd found a
copy of a magazine with a print of Vincent's painting from his window and made
my version of it. The timing was appropriate.
Vincent
VanGogh’s view from the Asylum Window (1890)
Just as I've stayed away from "Crows in a Wheat Field",
1 stayed away from Vincent's paintings after 1888 as I felt they were too close
to the end of him. I didn't want to deal with these final works because I felt,
somehow, that doing any of them would throw me off. I guess I forgot what 1
learned
several years ago, what comes to you, comes to you, you have
the choice of acceptance or denial.
Vincent and I remain on the best of terms.
The
more things change, the more they stay the same (3/24/95)
In the middle of the chaos I was fortunate to paint the portrait
of a favorite person of mine, Joseph Butkowski. Joe had been one of the
"keys" at the start of my career and had opened doors where large
scale ideas were put into place. It was the beginning of the on-line, data base
computer terminals on the shop floor era, and Joe reinforced my beliefs with
his fatherly advice, “if you want
to know what's going on, ask the people who are doing the
work, not the guys in the offices, not the managers. Take off your tie and work
with the folks doing the work. That's how you know what's up”.
Portrait
of Joseph Butkowski (4/18/95)
Sometimes I try too hard to make things come out the way I
think they should, for instance,
trying to paint spring before it really gets here, or could
even be here (March in Rochester, New York is NOT spring time) ends up looking
like this. A pallet knife and squirt bottle of black ink does not a spring
painting make but, everything counts even the mistakes.
On or about the end of April, 1995, significant changes took
place where I worked. People who were more than qualified to do what they did
were "let go" by people who didn't have a clue, nor did they even
care. It was, again, astonishing to me, to say the least. On or about the end
of April is for my friend Chuck. I can't give him this painting because it
would just bring up thoughts of a bad time, that would be one reason, the
second, he's an engineer and you know, you can't be giving paintings to most
engineers, too emotional. Maybe someday he'll see it in some museum.
About
the End of April (5/4/95)
Having taken a great deal of time to get our front yard into
the kind of shape where people would pass by and say "thanks for the
effort, we enjoy looking at what you've planted", and knowing about father
Claude Monet's gardens at Giverney, and having passed two years since the
original writing of this, I can only tell you that $300 exchanged hands with
this painting (my all time record). Having planted, then painted this
presentation resulted in success on both counts. Ms. Celia Nix, a teacher,
bought the work much to my delight.
In the spring and summer of 1995 everyone who had been
"in charge" during the previous three years was fired, except me. I
don't know why I remained, but that's the way it was. The "thing"
about this new place was that somebody had to represent history, and that was
me. I put on the following face.
Self,
still standing (8/14/95)
