Graffito

A mark on a page. A series of marks on a page. It’s as ancient as a cave and as current as the computer screen. To write is to communicate, to preserve a thought, memory or experience. To write is to be human. (I write therefore I am.) Marks on a page symbolize thoughts and ideas. It can be as simple as a grocery list or a complex as a novel. There is aesthetic pleasure while making marks on a page – or on a canvas – and there is pleasure about seeing them, too. They flow, jump, move across the page, and therefore these marks create human energy. Some writers prefer a pencil and a pad of paper. Others, like the late Sam Shepard, could only use a typewriter. Still others, like I’m doing now, use a computer, but from time to time retreat to pen and paper. Yet, in the end, it is about making marks on a surface. My Graffito paintings are a joy to make, and I hope you will enjoy engaging with them. “Rising Again” is my way of exploring what it means to get up and going, to start again and open up a new chapter in life. Something we all have to do from time to time. “There Are Patterns” is an example of my interest in patterned-chaos. Or said differently, maybe chaos is not chaos at all, but it a pattern of structure invisible to our limited imagination. The “Greening of a Soul” is my way of exploring an idea found in the poetry of Rainer Maria Rilke, who understood that souls ripen. Ripening is very different from succeeding or winning or accomplishing. In the painting “Bright, Dark and Beautiful” I am exploring the darkness of creativity, the way ferns grow in the dark corners of a forest. “Signatures Out of Time” and “Palimpsest” expresses my fascination with signature, that most personal mark we connect with our identity in the world. Enjoy!