Dolmen Project (Year Twelve) Confessions of a “Guerilla Artist”: In The Beginning

Metamorphosis

Day 1 (12/21/2018)

I was just looking and realized that I had not posted one blog on here in 2018. I really don’t know where this year has gone. I have decided that I am going to do better in 2019.

The Dark Years

Lately, I have found myself pondering the origins of my art. It has been a long journey from a vague idea of what I wanted to do, in the beginning, to where it is today. Artists often speak of some loss, guilt or other profound insight as being the impetus for their art. I was never able to really claim anything like that. I like to think of my art as a celebration of life and everything involved. In the beginning, college years, I was fascinated with Intaglio printmaking. I have always been a good draftsman and found intaglio as a worthy outlet for those skills. At that time in my life, I found myself in an almost constant funk. The deeper I sunk the darker my art became and the darker my art became the more depressed I became in a constant downward spiral. One night I had an epiphany, if I could I could draw myself into melancholy, perhaps I could draw/paint myself out. I started searching for a new direction. Possibly because of my background I had always had a love of bright colors but the seventies were a time where everyone was preaching the gospel of earth tones. I had grown up in a swamp and my earth tones were different from theirs. Mine were the colors of flowers, birds and the new growth of spring. I came to realize the importance of the swamp to my overall being. The swamp was a renaissance. It was where all life flowed to be born again. This awareness became an important part of my new art. I started experimenting with color as representations of these elements and started weaving them into images.