A Poem for Wednesday: Dutiful

"Transition"

30" x 40"

Oil and Mixed Media on Canvas

Fine Art Giclee Prints available on my Etsy site.

DUTIFUL


How did I get so dutiful? Was I always that way?
Going around as a child with a small broom and dustpan,
sweeping up dirt I didn't make,
or out into the yard with a stunted rake,
weeding the gardens of others
– the dirt blew back, the weeds flourished, despite my efforts –
and all the while with a frown of disapproval
for other people's fecklessness, and my own slavery.
I didn't perform these duties willingly.
I wanted to be on the river, or dancing,
but something had me by the back of the neck.
That's me too, years later, a purple-eyed wreck,
because whatever had to be finished wasn't, and I stayed late,
grumpy as a snake, on too much coffee,
and further on still, those groups composed of mutterings
and scoldings, and the set-piece exhortation:
Somebody ought to do something!
That was my hand shooting up.

But I've resigned. I've ditched the grip of my echo.
I've decided to wear sunglasses, and a necklace
adorned with the gold word no,
and eat flowers I didn't grow.
Still, why do I feel so responsible
for the wailing from shattered houses,
for birth defects and unjust wars,
and the soft, unbearable sadness
filtering down from distant stars?

by Margaret Atwood

New Homes

I love when collectors snap photos and email them to me.  As an artist, there is nothing more special than knowing a piece of me has been left with them for as long as they choose to display my paintings on their walls. Here are a few shots of my paintings in their new homes.  

Thursday's Other Creative Soul: Derrick Hickman

This week's featured "creative soul" is Visual Artist Derrick Hickman from Columbus, Ohio, whose multi-disciplinary approach to art leaves no stone unturned.

    "My recent work is an attempt to reconcile the conflict of that occurs between truthful memory and self perpetuated myth.
     The passions of my life are pretty simple.  My family (wife and three daughters), creating work that I am proud of, they are proud of and that also resonates with its audience. Aside from this core, I also love the process of writing (short stories and poetry), reading (biography and theory),  exercising and entertaining friends (cooking for friends is such a comfort thing for me.)
       I earned a BFA from Ohio University and have worked in commercial art since 1990, but have only had my fine art represented for the last 3 years.  My goal is to produce only fine art and work towards a      more national audience.  I am currently trying to find east coast and west coast representation.

     My artist influences range anywhere from Joseph Cornell to Basquiat.  I am also a big fan of outsider art and low brow art.  Other things that inspire me: Mid century architecture, vintage carnival art, used and worn toys, elaborate signage, discarded objects.   I have a strange duality in my art.  I am attracted to creating these clean graphic abstracted narrative pieces that I see as a growth of my modernist aesthetic.  Simultaneously, I want to work with clumsy tools to mesh together found objects in to some sort of crude play thing.
     I have great admiration for my mother.  I tend to be a little too doey eyed when it comes to my wife and children.  Outside of that, I am not really much of an idol worshiper.   If really pressed, I would have to say that Tom Waits is pretty damn cool.
     When I was younger, my motivations were purely intrinsic.  I wanted to do what I wanted and was willing to accept less in exchange for this freedom.  However,  as a middle aged husband and father of three, I no longer see myself as above commerce.  Current motivations are of course still rooted in personal expression, but I realize that art is still a business with the intent of sale.  What could be better than creativity combined with income.

   My work style is all over the place.  I often have two easels going at once with paper tacked to the wall for drawings.  I prefer to jump around.  This feeds my desire to have several ideas going at once as well as allows for continuous working while pieces dry.   I usually do not take many breaks.  My wife or kids often have to come knocking on my studio window to tell me its time to eat or that i was supposed to be somewhere an hour ago."

     www.canvasmuralstudio.com