Addicted

How much blood do you have to donate to represent the link between your art and your heart? Arts for arts sake; should be every artists motto, but what if the public will pay? Is this type of fun valid or meaningful? Does it have a reason? I like to think it is, and does.

I've been showing art at various cafe's and in group shows consistently in Chicago since November, 2012. In between shows, I frequently re-make old paintings that I've sold in past shows with a new style or technique I'm trying out. I tend to do a lot of my paintings these days on old glass windows. Reverse glass painting is the technique in play. I find a lot of the windows I use with the help of Courtney, my fiance'. She is a pro at getting bargains, helping me to invest in future projects. Many of the windows I use are old and going to be discarded with sometimes, rippled glass from the turn of the 20th century. The glass alone holds value. Imagine the way a painting looks behind rippled glass.

When I decided to start making reverse glass paintings, I wanted them to stand out as much as possible. I wanted the color value to be saturated. That's why I chose fluorescent spray paint to contrast the silhouettes I chose as focal aspects in the paintings. I decided to make images that you could see as if you were looking out of the glass window. I would like the audience to imagine themselves looking out onto the captivating world of art, instead of looking into an ambiguous painting.

A person that I consider to be a mentor and good friend once told me that, "Art makes our lives more enjoyable, livable and interesting. It should be accessible, and an unavoidable aspect of our daily lives." That's the way I try to make every show I'm in, or gallery at which I showcase. I want my art to be, "unavoidable, something you just bump into without even looking for it." I want it to leave an impression and be something that has an affect on you weather you realize it or not. I want people to be addicted to art; hooked. I don't want them to be able to look away...