PAINT/STRUCTURE

Cabins on the Erie

Smokestack

Details on the ship provided endless compositions and brilliant light on the Hudson.

1985 (Sold)

Captain's Cabin

DeSuvero's Studio, Long Island City

Erie Pilot House

On the Erie

An incentive to move away from figurative work ended up being a friend's beautiful 1938 oil tanker which was anchored in NY harbor. Seth Tane and Susan Watt lived and worked on the Erie for ten years in NY harbor, Hastings on Hudson and then in Charleston harbor, North Carolina. The beautiful lines and 30's style of the ship drew me to track on the forms and eventually led me to ships closer to home in Portland.

1985 (Sold)

Erie Stern

Rudder

This piece was done in the early 80's and is indicative of a simple style of stark color imagery from that period.

1982 (Sold)

Under Astern

In the mid to late 1980's I spent time on the Willamette River in Portland by the ships that were waiting to go into drydock. The architectural scale, rich patinas and weathered surfaces with the moving water proved an intoxicating subject.

(Sold)

House on the "Willamette Draw" Railroad Bridge

This 40" x 30" piece is in the Visual Chronicles of Portland Collection and was commissioned by the Selection Committee.

1989

Stern

Pastel and pure pigment, rubbed deeply into paper.

84" x 52"

1991

Steel Bridge Rivets

Painting (oil and alkyd, beeswax) of rivets from Portland’s Steel Bridge. The last of a long series of images from Portland that I worked on for close to 20 years.

2006

Sitka Rivets

Red Alert 1975

Behind the Collection

My most lucid work was creating a series of large ship paintings in pastel, especially the water and surfaces that I attacked physically with more abandon.

My work on rivers with ships and buildings developed as an escape from the figurative work I had done for about ten years. I visited a friend, Seth Tane, who was living on a ship in NY harbor. The ship was a 1932 great lakes oil tanker, 138’ steel hull ship with beautiful art deco lines and old oxidized paint that had rust and heavy hardware that made for great compositions.

Every visit for a few years I took photographs and translated them to pastels and oils. Later I took small boats onto the Willamette River in Portland and explored below the ships waiting to go into drydock. Amazing vertical architecture and colors next to sky and water. I was intoxicated with the scale of these places and the floating architectural sculpture I experienced there.

Until I left Sitka Center in 2006, the ships, water and buildings were my most intimate places to go for imagery.