only those who dive or fish truly understand the living colors of these creatures. they have a vibrancy to them that ignites at the surface, all rose gold and hot blues. I am lucky enough to be both a diver and fisher and its their living colors alone that brought me to paint them.
Currently exhibiting works at JAWBONE Gallery Cape May, New Jersey
I grew up daydreaming and exploring on every kind of bank there was in Missouri. From heavy silt sourced muddy rivers, flooded quarry limestone bottom lakes, to still gelatinous farm ponds grown over in idle algae.
At fourteen I began SCUBA diving and the life change in that singular event of taking a breath underwater wrote a future for me. The interaction beneath the surface was exhilarating, I had this awareness of being the alien down there. Everything approaching so curious of you, there was a peaceful allowance, not necessarily a respect from the life below, but an open invitation to explore and learn past the experience of just catching a fish and pulling it up. You are in their world and it is dangerous at every moment. Being there is a gift. Coming away from that, surfacing back out of the pressure and into the fast-air noise, changed me. I went into rescue diving and spent the next few years in the hard waters of the North Pacific.
On a warm August day I was approached by a man who owned a very small commercial fishing boat. I was asked to join up and for the next three years answered to my Handle “Blondie” and fished some of the most remarkable creatures. It was in this time that I found the unavoidable call to paint fish.
There is a subtle rhythm to deep sea fishing, familiar sounds of downrigging in favorable water. When the fish would claim your bait a war begins. Their colors surface like a threat, rose gold, hidden green, the very chrome of living blue is almost unmatchable. The respect I have for the sea and the life in it overwhelmed me and I knew I had to paint them, for nothing if only to remember and celebrate their driving force to live.
In my work it is my hope to estrange others from the concept that there are “many fish in the sea” by showcasing them individually with all their life and experience written across them. Fish are not just masses out there unidentifiable and without soul or purpose. These are companions to our world, every tail movement a pulse to a wave. I aim to honor them and showcase their beauty to all who look to see.
“You have to take your time when you’re painting fish. there are whole storms in their sides, full courses of desserts on their scales. You don’t just paint a fish, you paint every color in treasure. every cool night depth and warm morning. there are jewels in their cheeks.”
