The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.

Robert Henri

The power of the suggestive is much greater than the statement of reality.

C.W. Mundy

I AM nothing WITHOUT MY EYES!

Gargano Peninsulais just a site to pull together  the various things I’ve created over the years. It’s not an e-commerce site, just a portfolio. Things that I have for sale can be seen in our gallery in Oaxaca. I want to reassure you that when I state that “I am nothing without my eyes,” I am talking about myself only. I don’t think that visually impared human beings are worthless or that they don’t have rich and fulfilling lives. I mean that just about everything I value in life I experience thorough my eyes. At this stage of life, I can’t imagine how I could survive the loss of my eyesight.
Watercolor is the first painting medium that I attempted. At the time, in the early 1990’s, I was neck deep in family and work. I needed a medium that had low barriers to entry, meaning that the materials were relatively inexpensive and could be easily stored and cleaned in a crowded house. I don’t have my earliest works but I kept at it and eventually sold my first, a street scene featuring the old Triple J Cafe in downtown Kirkland, WA. I sold another of the Coffee and Cone nearby. Then I started doing larger format florals that worked for me. As you can see, greenery is a common theme in these paintings. I’m reminded of a Georgia O’Keeffe quote, “I hate flowers – I paint them because they’re cheaper than models and they don’t move.” I put them down to persue oils but picked them up again after we opened our gallery for the first time. I found it easier to paint in the gallery using watercolor.

Before we traveled to Europe in 2018, we became interested in urban sketching as a way to slow down the pace of tourism by sitting and deeply focusing on a particular scene. We sketched through Lisbon, Madrid, Barcelona, Costa Brava, and Paris. It was wonderful.

Returning to Oaxaca, I dabbled in it but still worked on the larger format watercolors. When we closed our gallery due to the pandemic, I decided to focus more on urban sketching. I enjoyed the smaller format and the quick turnaround of the work. It’s what I’m most focused on to this day.

After working in watercolor for a few years, I somehow got it into my head that oils get more respect in the art world so I started playing with them. I fell in love with the work of Richard Schmid, Kevin MacPherson, and C.W. Mundy. 

The process of oil painting, and more the smells of it took me back to my childhood at mother’s side watching her paint and sitting for a portrait. 

In the year I took to close up shop in the U.S. and move to Oaxaca, I somehow became interested in video as an interesting pastime and way to document my life in Oaxaca. 

Doing these short videos has given me a great appreciation for the movie maker’s craft, and for why it’s so expensive to make one. 

My first camera was a basic Kodak loaded with black and white film which I carried with me when my grandmother took my middle brother and me on a heritage tour of Washington D.C. and Philadelphia when I was 11y.o. There were a lot of shots of things from a distance, including a speck of a hawk.

Later my big brother returned from Viet Nam with a bunch of Pentax cameras. When I lived in South America in my early 20’s I had one with me. I’ve always used them since, a Spotmatic, K-1000, ME Super, K-20D, K-7, K-5, and a K-3.

My photo library has around 10,000 images. Don’t worry, I won’t inflict them all on you.

This gallery is filtered. You can reset the filters by clicking on the search categories on the left. 

Yeah, someday I’m going to write some stuff.