Monday, February 25, 2008

farmer benn from cumbria


$475

this is inspired by a picture i found in an old national geographic. the entire article is on this farmer named Farmer Benn, who is quoted as saying: "i like doin' things the old way". he was a happy, overworked farmer. he is also quoted as saying: "when will i retire? i'm workin' myslef down from 90-hour weeks. Maybe next year it'll be 80 hours." a typical and charming image of farmers.
(Currently housed in Halifax)

for a bowl of rice




from a picture of a thai hilltribe woman, from my trip in 2005.

she is cleaning rice in the traditional way.

old friends


as i wend to the shores i know not,
as i list to the dirge, the voices of men and women
wreck'd
as i inhale the impalpable breezes that set in upon me,
as the ocean so mysterious rolls toward me closer and colser,
i too but signify at the utmost a littlewash'd-up drift,
a few sands and dead leaves to gather,
gather, and merge myself as part of the sands and
drift.

-Walt Whitman,
from As I Ebb'd with the Ocean Life

peace of the wild things






inspired by my dad and the poem by Wendell Berry:


Peace of the Wild Things

When despair for the world grows in me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting with their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free.




-Wendell Berry

"clothesline"


4ftx2.5ft (approx)


i love this painting not only for its energy, but for its vintage feel. the subject reminds me of my grandmother. i (loosly) based the photo off of an old black and white photograph i found.

train hopping


even if you don't catch a ride, the act of trying to
go somewhere
makes the sidewalk and bills melt away,
as the foliage massages your soul awake.
and you find that somehow you've left one place for another
without necessarily moving very far at all.

pause

Saturday, February 9, 2008

after the fieild II


30x30inches
i did a smaller sketch similar to this last year.
this is a bigger and better version.
($450)

Monday, February 4, 2008

seaworn rythm


vagrant finesse
o driftwood heart,
velveteen
battered by storm
Resilient itinerant
Matched only by the sea

30x30inches

Saturday, February 2, 2008

sky light


10x10 inches

winter bare



5x7inches
for sale

tree shadows


Trees are magicians
Who lay their echo
gently
along frost-crisped lawns
And cracked sidewalks
Who wrap their blue arms around boxed houses,
Entreating you to listen,
Loosen
the vice that holds you still

(5x7inches)