Create! Magazine is a bi-monthly contemporary art magazine that helps promote artists and the art community online and in print.  The artwork chosen for each issue of individual artists is juried.  The juror for Issue 12 Miami Edition is Kaly Scheller-Barrett, artist and curator. I am thrilled to say that I was one of the artists chosen for this issue and I want to thank the juror for being one of the artists selected.  I also wanted to compliment the staff on Create! for creating a really beautiful magazine!

I wanted to sum up Halloween in one word and "spooky" was the word this time. Word art has become very popular in the retail setting and in modern art. We are bombarded with graphics, advertisements and the media and I think that this  has an impact on my ideas and also I am intrigued and affected by all the visual images.

Pearl's House will be at Summit Art Space in "Against the Sky" exhibit through Nov. 17th.  The challenge for the show was to interpret the line of separation or conjunction of land and sky.  In this piece the horizon line is visible in the bushes in the background then hidden behind the house then canopied by the sky. More information about the show is at www.summitartspace.org.

I am pleased to say that this painting in now a part of the collection of the Cleveland Art Association (Carta). This year annual exhibition is open to the public today Friday Oct. 19 and Saturday Oct. 20 at Reinberger Gallery at the Cleveland Institute of Art. For more information the web address is www.clevelandartassociation.org.  Thank you Carta!

This painting is on view at Harris Stanton Gallery through September 29th.  The show is "An American City: Viewpoints"  The show is running in conjunction with the Front International: Cleveland Triennial for Contemporary Art: An American City including Cleveland, Akron and Oberlin which runs through September 30th. The inspiration for this piece was to portray a view of Akron semi-abstractly with the building overlapping each other with transparency to work with the space in the canvas. Charles Scheeler's abstract cityscapes was an inspiration for this painting.

I wanted to thank everyone who came to the opening last night.  Thank you Meg, Ivana and staff for your continual support.  It was a perfect evening.  I had a very enjoyable time especially after the frenzy of the final push to get the paintings done and in time for the show. 

This painting is near completion for my upcoming show with Lee Heinen in Akron at Harris Stanton Gallery.  The opening is Thursday July 12 from 5:30 to 8pm and the show will run through August 11th.  The gallery is located at 2301 West Market Street, Akron, Ohio 44313. The website is www.HarrisStantonGallery.com. I  hope to see you there!

This is the box I donated to "Out-of-the-Box Auction" for the 9th Biennial Arts Alive Awards Celebration and Fundraiser on June 12th at 5:30 at Summit ArtSpace in Akron. www.summitartspace.org/all-about-arts-alive-2018/

I finally finished this painting. I started it about two years ago and I didn't know what to do with it so I put it in storage. I was looking at it wondering if I'll ever figure out what to do with it.  It's from a photo-collage, but the photo didn't help me either.  So I just started staring at it and answers started popping up as I looked at it more and more.  Then I started working on it again and it came to a finalization finally.

This is a new piece that I sent to Kutztown PA for the annual Invitational Salon of Small Works. I used premeditated colors for the piece, but it still turned out different than I expected.  Many things can spark my inspiration for a piece and then I have to figure in other things such as time limitations or deadlines.  I chose this house for its simplicity and then I decided that I was going to make the painting in reds, whites, greys and black.

This painting is not recent. I have always been interested in drawing and painting trees. I like the way the branches grow and twist around as they move through space.  I want to document this painting because its in bad shape.  Unfortunately it has cracked badly and will not last too long.

Robert Indiana was the inspiration for this piece along with my interest in using words in artwork.  I wanted to create my own version of the word.  This painting has opened up a whole new wave of ideas pouring in on top of all the other ideas that I still have to get to.  My sketchbook is multiplying like rabbits and my time to paint all the ideas I have is shrinking.  I realize that the bigger my sketchbook gets that I will not possibly get to all my ideas alone.

I was accepted into the Summit Artspace photography show called "24" which celebrates the 24 Akron neighborhoods.  The photo that I submitted was in the Highland Neighborhood.  The opening for the show is Friday, April 13th and for more information on their website: https://www.summitartspace.org/summit-artspace-gallery/

Giving my paintings names is a job in itself.  Just calling it "untitled" is a bad idea for me because it would create a lot of confusion when talking about a specific piece. I would have to sit there and describe it in many sentences whereas a title gets right to the point.  In fact, some of my titles include a description of one of the aspects of the painting such as "purple sky" or "yellow roof". The title of this painting is "Dusk"..  This painting will be for sale at the 25th Annual ART-tini Auction benefit at Harris Stanton Gallery in Akron from April 5th to April 12th.  More info at:  www.HarrisStantonGallery.com