A New Year, A New Palette:
CHANGING TIMES, CHANGING PALETTE
January 20, 2006 - The last few years of my life have made each twelve month period seem like a marathon - living month to month, and some months less than that, I'm pretty sure I'm allotted so much energy to get me through the year, because by November, I'm pretty much strapped for energy and vitality.  Of course, the great thing about one year ending is the birth of another one, and the year starts revitalized and full of momentum.

And so I'm trying out some smaller works - around 16"x24", some larger some smaller, exploring new flesh tones and lighter colors, new grays and exciting purples.  I've also started to develop the themes for the show - it's going to concentrate on the changing of the guard between generations - with the long awaited retirement of the baby boomers, its now the time for my generation to stand up and take the reins from this messed up world. The self indulgent baby boomers are a perfect target.  I think its funny how those young idealists turned self centered egoists who revel in their own mythology - Civil Rights, the Beatles, I Love Lucy, Vietnam War protests, the liberation of women - are the same ones who sold it all for a Mercedes, stock options, bigger homes, bigger cars, and a mean spirited ideology that has resulted in the evils of Ronald Reagan, George Bush, the Iraq war and the world teetering on an environmental disaster.

Don't get me wrong, 'Generation X' has more than its share of problems and probably less answers, but there's a shrewd, jaded mentality that is pervasive to the social problems the Boomers left behind - the worst education system in the world, ubiquitous advertising, cancellation of Social Security after those liberal soul suckers retire, no progress in race relations.  We were the generation raised to not worry about having a lower standard of living than our parents.  They got theirs, what do they care?  A Starbucks triple latte tastes just as good in their gas guzzling SUV as they sit in the parking lot of Walmart listening to talk radio.

So, it'll be an interesting show.  I don't want to harp on the negatives throughout, and I do intend to make beauty and thought provoking images from this mess, and as an artist living at the end of the American Dream and the dawn of a steady decline of society into fragmented pop culture fed entities, but the time has come to change the guard, like I did my palette.

	This painting is set around David and Saul.  Saul was the old, bitter king who was driven mad by the public's fascination with David, the King to be.  I can sympathize with both characters, but will probably deliver a death blow to Saul in this version.		One of my color experiments, my bean was touched by the yellows and burgundies built on a grayed cerulean sky.
	This painting will be about revelations.  Notice the turned back.		I'm working on incorporating hippies into these works.  This is a study that will change drastically before all is said and done.
	Another color study, working with lights as a backdrop instead of the heavy handed dark that has propped up my paintings for some time now.		One of the larger paintings I'm working on right now, a group scene with women and a man.  I'd love to see how far I can push the hippie elements (VW vans, flowers, guitars and drum circles) without walking in the land of the trite.