A DIFFERENT KIND OF ART

Over the last couple of years I have been (among many other things) making paintings, of course. And after creating a few pieces that rest completely outside any larger series and have no explicit intellectual quest, I realized that I was creating a different kind of art with these particular works. What kind of art? Deeply personal and emotional family heirlooms that are not intended for live public consumption or sale (outside of portfolio images on my website). It's an interesting subtlety and one I felt was worth thinking about a bit more. My wife and I welcomed our wonderful and wondrous baby girl into the world in December of last year, and naturally, she needed to be painted.


There are many phases to a painting and many thoughts pop in and out of one’s mind while creating it. One of them, naturally, is the impact that the piece may (or may not… says the anxious and self-critical voice) have on a hypothetical audience the painting will one day engage with. I firmly believe that an artist who truly believes they have something meaningful to say has a moral obligation to share it with the world. After all, art is a communication feature of the human experience… a darwinian adaptation to help humans more fully capture and communicate the nuanced and subtle nature of their intrinsic, subjective worlds. I am firm in that position. But the “world” does not necessarily need to mean the world. Indeed, some works are simply too sacred and personal to be shared with the larger world or to be hung on a gallery wall. As artists, some works are meant for our walls and for ourselves and our loved ones to be the sole audience. After completing the painting, I want this fixed, static image of our baby girl to stare back at her as she continues to grow. Her first words, her first steps, her first everything in her early life will be witnessed by her representation hung on the wall, staring back at her as she evolves. As she travels through time and space, this artifact will remain unmoved and unchanged as she changes, grows and drinks deep of the rich elixir that is her life and experiences. As artist Miles Johnston put it to me in my recent podcast episode with him, the fixedness of a painting or work of art is anything but a limitation… It is the form. The permanent and static nature of a painting is part of what makes visual art so beautiful. As the universe presses forward in time, a painting lives as a flagpost which cements a moment; a microcosm rich in meaning and deemed beautiful enough to be captured by the captivated eye who produced it. In this case, her father’s eyes.

Perhaps, in some moment in the distant future, she will gaze deeply and contemplatively at the painting, seeing her youngest self through the eyes of her father so many years past. Perhaps, long after my wife and I are gone, it will live on through generations as a symbol of love and family; as an artifact of the triumph of virtue and positive values. The very virtues and values that have been passed on to me.


However, in the final analysis… Once the game has been played, the lights are being dimmed and the curtains are coming to a close, the true legacy of my life will not be my art. It will be the values, virtues and love paintings like these represent; living on through the people who embody them. A child raised properly is the true work of art; the masterwork of one’s life. The rest is just pigment pushed around on wood.

Athena | 20" x 16" x 1.5" | Oil on panel. | 2025