It’s simple, all over the place!

It’s simple. I have fairly broad, but particular tastes. I grew up in New York City, but very early on determined that ASAP I would cast the die for the parts unknown. My attitude was formed by a severe reaction to what I saw in New York City: congestion, noise, filth, and general disorder. But the city was important in developing sensitivity and direction for later exploration, artistically and otherwise.

Yes, it was culturally and artistically diverse. I literally ran into Dali on the street one day. After he picked me up, someone told me who it was I had run into. Later that day at the library, I looked him up and found his work fascinating. And I still do. I only wish that I had met him again and had an opportunity to talk to him about art.

A teacher at my Junior High School introduced me to the Hudson School of Art. I was familiar with the nearby Hudson River from wanderings about the City, school field trips, and drives with my parent. Looking, naively, at the Hudson School art, I wondered how we could take such beauty and make such a mess of it. I’m no longer naive, but I still wonder about this.

As a carver, I have an interest in many things relating to the sea. These interests were also germinated in New York. From a seafaring family, it would have been hard to miss the cues. My father’s workshop, where the stanchions were decorated with marlinspike coachwork. The repeated threats that he was going to go “looking for a ship. Or my uncle Lenny’s oil paintings of ships, and his stories of time in the Navy.

With those as influences, I developed an interest in all things maritime. The paintings of Antonio Jacobson and James Butterworth are special favorites. Those cover the formal art, but as a craftsman, I am fascinated by what to many might be the ephemera of life at sea. Most important to me personally is the creative work of the common sailor – very often sophisticated, but as art, untutored.

That’s it. My interests in art. It’s all over the place.