“Under The Shell Moon”
acrylic latex on sailcloth
50” x 36”
1994

 

The process of creating art in your own style is really the process of becoming yourself. I struggled with this for years, not understanding that what I was doing as an artist was further refining who I was as a person. You peel away layer by layer, slowly getting closer to heart of who you are. My art reflected this, and by the time I painted this painting I had painted well over several hundred canvases, peeling back layer after layer to get past copying my favorite artist and finding my own language.

This piece started as a couple of doodles. I sketched those doodles into a coherent piece and put it on canvas. I used acrylic house paint that I bought at the paint store just up Broadway from us in Long Beach. I’d buy mis-mixed paints for really cheap – using whatever colors I bought as my new palate.

I never attributed a meaning to this painting. I leave that to the imagination of the viewer.