Ft. Stockton Murals

I recently traveled to Ft. Stockton, Texas to work on a few murals in the Ft. Stockton Nursing Home. By the end of the week I finished 3 murals, encompassing 250 square feet, in a little under 47 hours.  Like most artists I could have spent many more hours polishing each of the murals, but a looming (re)grand opening had me working on one painting while the others dried. While I was there I discovered that the Ft. Stockton Nursing Home is an active Nursing Home which was merely remodeling while I was there. In case you are curious, one is able to paint in an active nursing home like one might perform eye exams in an active Kindergarten classroom. I found out very early that, in order to avoid being shown pictures of great grandkids or being asked to change soiled bed sheets, it would be best to begin working after the residents have gone to bed. Despite the sleep deprivation, it was a rewarding and very valuable learning experience.... and there was the Miss Margie.  It's always nice to see others enjoy your work and Miss Margie in room 303, suffering from Alzhiemer's, would roll her wheelchair out of her room every few hours and pile on the praise and compliments. I would tell her my name again and she would tell me how much she liked butterflies. Every few hours I would be met with the same enthusiasm and praise on this "new" painting. 

Chief Hollow Horn Bear

Below is quick picture of my latest bullet casing piece. Each piece continues to be a learning experience and a welcome challenge trying to get the most out of this unique medium. 

Chief Hollow Horn Bear

30'x36'

Austin Skyline (kindof)

Recently I took on a unique project at the request of friends. They needed something to put on their living room wall and they had a very strict idea of what they wanted. The strict demands for my art work in the space provided is as follows: "something that looks cool".  

We came up with an abstract idea of the Austin skyline with certain liberties taken to add the UT tower and move a few other iconic buildings so they appear like they are on South Congress. I took it as an opportunity to try out an idea I had been kicking around in my head for the past year or so. I would use multiple canvas to give the piece a 3D effect and add to the perspective of somebody looking up at the buildings. The canvases are "stacked" to give the viewer the impression that certain buildings are closer than those in the distance. 

More pictures of the fully complete artwork to come!

UPDATE!

We finally got this sucker on the wall, and wouldn't you know I forgot my real camera. Here's a iPhone picture anyway:

Bullet Casing Art Continued

I completed my second Bullet casing artwork a few weeks ago and quickly began putting together my third. The effort it takes to make each bullet "canvas" means that I am not as quick to experiment with a style or color than if I had been using a normal cheap canvas from Hobby Lobby. For the most recent piece I did not had any white highlights, which left a more subtle image close up, but from a few feet away it takes on the feel of an old rustic photograph.

More Guitart!

This past few months I had the pleasure of working on a new guitar for a great friend of mine. He was patient enough to let me borrow his guitar for a few months while I completed the artwork whenever I had a few hours to spare...Mostly nights when I couldn't sleep and days I needed something to do to put off mowing the yard.

These guitars are always a mountain of time and mental energy to create, but I always learn so much with each new guitar I find myself looking forward to each new challenge.

Traveling Boots

I own a pair of dirty worn out boots I've had since I was 19. I picked them off the shelf of a store in my hometown when they were new, clean, and still held the aroma of fresh leather. Now, the toes have been scuffed to a sturdy velvet, and the soles no longer provide much traction. The tops are frayed and stained from sweat. They were once the color of a copper penny and held a shine, but now they have taken on the all the luster of an old piece of farm equipment resting in a field. I would be justified to get rid of them, but I can't seem to let them go. They have been all over with me. On a train through Europe I started listed how far these boots have been. Like stickers on an old suitcase, I added names in ink to the side of the boots. They fit right in some places I've worn them and stuck out in others, if the drawl didn't already give it away. They've been soaked by the snow in the Austrian Alps, and caked in mud from a dirt road in Bolivia. They held up on a cotton farm in Lubbock, and once two-stepped across dance hall floors in the Texas Hill Country. They were underneath my feet when I saw a Monet painting for the first time. That same year, I met my first niece wearing them. Theres a splatter of acrylic paint I dripped on them during a summer in Massachusetts, and a single droplet of blood I added after I shoot my first deer with my Granddad. I was wearing them that night I thought my life was going to change forever. I was wearing them when I bought the ring I presented to the woman who would become my wife. 
They have have taken a lot of steps since they first left Early, Texas seven years ago. All those steps led me here...and I imagine they will keep going. It is where these boots have been that has made them.

'We shall not cease from exploration, and the end of all our exploring will be to arrive where we started and know the place for the first time.'

Bullet Casing Project

     Starting in the Summer of 2011, I began working at a Gun Store and Shooting Range that my uncle owned. Despite being brought up deep in the heart of gun totting' Texas, my experience with firearms prior to this was limited to a red ryder BB gun and one dove hunting trip where a friend  armed me with a single shot 410 shotgun. The experience of  working at the range was eye opening in a number of ways.  Like many people who did not grow up around firearms, shooting, or hunting, I had formed an opinion about guns and gun owner's without really ever understanding anything about them. It became clear to me throughout my first summer working there that the gun is only a tool in the hands of whoever is holding it.We all know what a gun is capable of. Just looking at one makes us visualize our own portrait of what it could be used for. A means to obtain food, a facilitator of crime, the keys to freedom, the scourge of mankind, and the voice of revolutions could all be used to describe a gun. A lone symbol that has the power to draw such emotion even without seeing it in action. It's a very powerful message for a small piece of metal.  A single, tangible object capable of evoking so many varying thoughts and feelings.
 It was this idea (and being surrounded by mountains of firearm related objects) that led me to my next  project. Gradually over the the next two and a half years that thought manifested itself in the form of brass bullet casings arranged into a "canvas".

After many trails and errors...the finished "Canvas. The actually painting ended up being the easy part

 I chose a portrait of Comanche chief Quanah Parker to don my bullets. A man I felt was very aware of the power of firearms ,but not confined to violence.

I calculated it took about 3000 .40cal bullets casings to make this portrait.