This week I am traveling again, accumulating the energy of artworks everywhere:  I have marveled at the amazing  hyper-decorated surfaces of Chris Ofili and at the three dimensional tension of Henry Moore's string scultptures at the Tate.  I have lost myself yet again in the hugely brave lilac strokes of Monet's water lilies and marveled at his early courage.  The influence of his abstract gesture has affected so many, from the geographic boundaries of Clifford Styl, to the emotional stains of Helen Frankenthaller,  to the neurotic scribbles of Cy Twombly and frantic drips of Jackson Pollock.  All of the above share an all over surface activation and energy that fills me with awe.  I am taking this to the bank and investing it into my own work when I get back...stay tuned.

jungle bro...temporary title.  this is a tiny canvas primed in a dark mossy red where the yellow and flesh tones and the touches of turquoise really pop.  I must be careful not to fill everything in...I have gone back into my swimmer photo archives and resurrected this old image of my brother in his ray bans underwater.  Yes, I know you can't tell what it is, so far I have really only worked on the river of light, but that is the effect of my recent work where the pull towards abstraction is much stronger.  I will pull the figurative element in a bit just to increase the tension between description and expression.  I like that place where I am torn between the two.  It seems to describe my current self completely.

Back to working on this image.  For a long time I could not understand how it related to any other work of mine really, but I see now the layering of calligraphic, non descriptive gesture is just exactly what I have been doing.  Gesture, mark making as expression rather than description.  I am accumulating paint thickness, strokes, drips, shades...looking for that liquid equivalent in a solid, that moving metaphor for a static medium.  The expression is in the hand, the emotion is always in the body, but the description articulates in the mind, separate, parallel, reciprocal.