Artist’s Statement

I’ve loved drawing from the figure all my life or at least since art school in the 1970s. Last summer I decided to experiment with some larger pieces, working from a 40-inch-wide roll of Strathmore Drawing paper. I wanted to loosen up and try to achieve a feeling of spontaneity. A day at Jones Beach in New York provided the perfect subject. During the hot summer months a narrow strip of the Earth a few hundred yards wide and several miles long is jammed with tens of thousands of human beings. Walking the length of the beach there are scores of languages and even more skin colors. Everyone is as close to being naked as legally possible and there are no inhibitions. It’s a scene of teeming, scrambling children, adults trying haplessly to keep track of them, then giving up and behaving like them. There are intimate couples threading quietly through whole extended families and solitary individuals just contemplating the pounding surf. And I guess that could be me right there in the middle, taking everything in. All under the hazy disk of the sweltering sun. Getting a sense of all that movement and sound made looseness and spontaneity virtually unavoidable. This was easily the most fun drawing I’ve ever done.

Exhibits and Awards

5/18    The Figure, Group Show, Bauhaus Prairie Online Gallery* 4th Place Award
11/16   Colleagues and Friends Bruce Waldman Group ShowMehu Gallery, NYC
11/12   Art of Democracy Group Show, American Society of Etchers Sacred Gallery, NYC
03/12  Weather or Not Art on the Pier Group Show, NCECA National Conference, Seattle WA
06/11   International Exhibition of Contemporary Works on Paper Group Show NYCoo Gallery, NYC
11/10   Paths to Peace Invitational Group Show, Paramount Theater, Peekskill, NY

10/10   Faced Solo show — ceramics and prints, Flat Iron Gallery, Peekskill, NY
06/05   Theatrics Solo show — ceramics, Flat Iron Gallery, Peekskill, NY
05/03   Works on Paper Solo show — Drawings and Watercolors, Harrison Public Library, Harrison, NY
05/02   Juried Non-Members Show Salmagundi Club, New York, NY
04/02   Annual Juried Show New Haven Paint and Clay Club New Haven, CT
02/02   Invitational Teapot Show Flat Iron Gallery, Peekskill, NY
04/01   Annual Juried Show Kent Art Association, Kent, CT * Winner, Best Drawing in Show
02/01   Wall art for Story Pots show of ceramics Flat Iron Gallery, Peekskill, NY

12/00  Annual Juried Show Belle Levine Art Center, Mahopac, NY, Publications
Fall/12 Inkwell Journa  Cover illustration
06/05  Ceramics Monthly magazine Upfront
10/98  Wrote and illustrated Michelangelo’s Surprise Childrens picture book published by Farrar Straus Giroux, NYC
11/98 Booklist Magazine