April 3, 2019

Big Man Dances



Freedom.  It was the second concept that came to my mind after a change of commercial art venues caused me to wonder, “What next?”  My faithful agent had retired, and with that the freedom to basically paint, draw, or sculpt whatever I wanted, as she had a broad range of clients with a variety of tastes.  My remaining commercial venue served clients with a much more limited collecting range - mostly paintings of South Carolina architecture with some folks who swing a bit in to mosaic masks.   I don’t mind these subjects and these art forms.  I am truly grateful to have collectors interested in any of what I do.  But this is  just a small portion of what I do and where my interests lie. 






So what to do with all the drawings, works on paper, sculpture, musical instruments, paintings that are not South Carolina architecture, and mixed media works - stuff that now clutters my home and would be costly to store outside of this friendly abode?
Generally, when faced with an art bottleneck of this kind, I seek to continue to create art  but without generating more stuff to store until times change.  This can be accomplished by perusing my unfinished work of the past, or work that seemed to be finished but could be better.  By working over old sketches and old paintings I can continue to sharpen my skills without adding to my excess studio fat. 
To begin, I had a box of sketches of dancers that I made years ago during live performances.  Dance has always  been a favorite subject of mine for both drawing by observation and also as a participant.  Over the past few weeks, I have been embellishing these pencil sketches with brush and ink, charcoals, and pastels.  In fleshing these drawings out, they have acquired new meaning.  One figure kept returning.  I called him simply, “Big Man.”  Big Man wanted to dance.  He had a Herculean grace that belied his size.  A story line almost seemed to emerge.  I have yet to decide, however, who “Big Man” really is.

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