2003-2009 Artist Statement

2003 - 2009 (age 45 - 51), I was working with my family in a highly demanding business. My wife, Diane, and I had four kids, 2 boys, and 2 girls, all artists. Our boys earned their Bar Mitzvahs, one of them in Israel. I concentrated on a few major works and most importantly set the stage for my later works. My degree in Fine Art left me unskilled in graphic arts. I corrected that by taking the time to learn Adobe Photoshop and over time The Adobe Suite. If you asked my kids who my favorite child was back then they would all answer, Adobe, with big smiles.

With a strong technical background, I started to have an affinity for using software with my art. That is when I stumbled upon photomosaics. A photomosaic application uses thousands of photos. The software organizes them according to composition, contrast, and color and compares each to the main photo. The result is a single image created by thousands of photos. This project required me to digitize all of my work.

Since then, I have become fastidious in organizing all of my digital files. That exercise also led to the creation of something remarkable, the catalog raisonné of my art. Every piece has been documented and cataloged in a set of books in date order. You can follow the progression of my art from crayon drawings to the sophistication of today.

During this period a large portion of the time was dedicated to posters. They combine conceptual images with figures, poetry, and song lyrics. I was surrounded by music. I also found the back of my heels throbbing constantly. This led to surgery on both of my Achilles heels. I did them one at a time. The rehab was extensive. During rehab, I started a fascination with making bugs. Since I liked lots of small experiments with styles they make for a convenient object.

Things that Happened 2003-2009:

2003 Space Shuttle exploded; Iran war; Yom Kipper war with Syria 2004 Mars Rover; Facebook launched 2005 Hurricane Katrina; Hurricane Wilma; Wilma left us with no power for 11 days. 2007 Apple iPhone introduced 2009 Obama elected

Notable work:

Uba Tuba - By juxtaposing multiple Tubas I created a very colorful composition.

Jaime’s Bar Mitzvah - After the Bar Mitzvah of our son in Isreal, I stayed for an extra week in a place called Sfadt, near the Sea of Galilee. I liked this place because there was an area of the town dedicated to painters. It has a strong spiritual place in history. I befriended one of the artists and he helped me to expand my way of painting by including dripping paint. His name was Catriel Efrony and has since died.

Jason’s Bar Mitzvah - I made a sensitive drawing of Jason reading his Torah portion which the Cantor sings. The Cantor trained Jason to read his portion. The background looks like a piece of matzah. A nice touch.

Slow Mover - My father had a life-threatening aortic aneurysm. The immediate family went to Houston Texas where an ingenious doctor cooled his body and repaired the weakness in his artery. It was scary. I painted and wrote a poem while he was in surgery.

Shark Valley - Based on a photo while on a bike trip to Shark Valley, a Florida State Park. It depicts a teenage alligator partially submerged in the water. The piece is now on permanent display at the University of Florida in the student center called the Rietz Union.