A portrait of my father

Since I've been digging them off the shelf....

This is one of the first portraits I did with oils on a larger sized canvas as well as one of the first portraits of my father (all in all, I painted close to 10 paintings of him before he passed on).

My father was diagnosed with cold agglutinin disease, which, simply put, is a disease affecting the body's ability to produce red blood cells. In cold weather, the disease causes the antibodies to bind and coagulate the red blood cells excessively, creating poor circulation and eventual organ failure.

There is no cure, but treatment is simple--stay out of cold weather. Simple enough unless you were my father, who spent most his waking hours on his feet and outside. The disease forced its way into his lifestyle and pushed him to change everything he valued in life: nature, the farm, a soft winter snow. To say it caused major disruption and dischord in the rhythym of his life would be an understatement.

This portrait was painted from pictures I took of him in the corner of a room in our old farm house, a room the family affectionately referred to as "the red room".

Portland Open Studios and Frankenstein

Well, this weekend is the beginning of Portland Open Studios, an artist "walk" in which Portland folk gather and commute to various areas of the city to peer in on artists at work in their studios. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUTTjx7MCE8 for more info.) I helped my brother in law set his studio up for it last year and it looked like so much fun, I had to jump on board this year.

To prepare the studio, I hung all of my older paintings down the preceding hallway and stairwell.....most of them are from ten years ago (right after I graduated). Taking them out of storage was a nostalgic process at minimum. Thought I'd post them up with a few notes.


"lion's tooth" my sister modeled in our old Ohio farmhouse for this one. Its composition is influenced by an Edvard Munch painting.




"Maternal". To this day my mother will not let me forget that I made her model in the middle of the night in her bathrobe and then proceeded to paint her face as though she were suffering from leprosy. She's still reluctant to pose for me. Trust ma, trust.




"The woodcutter who kicked against the womb". My father. Inspired by an attempt he made to fell a tree in our backwoods, which resulted in him driving himself to the ER and receiving 11 stitches on the back of his leg.



"Vehiculum". My father again. He had a deep love and hate for working on our vehicles. It seemed to give him purpose and meaning, likewise sending him into the fowlest fogs of curses and scowls. It was to this strange love affair that I found myself spectating from above and handing down specific tools like a nurse before some mad frankensteinian surgeon.


"Everything in its right place." I'll never forget scratching away at this one long into those cold Ohio fall nights. I was alone, in the farm house with only a kerosene heater, some oatmeal, and Radiohead's newly released KID A album. Hmmmm, breathe deep of that thick turpentine smellin nostalgia.