When I was an undergraduate senior forty years ago, I was told by my SUNY college advisor that I was too inept to succeed as an artist. He suggested for me to choose another career. I quit school the next day and set upon a 30-year autodidactic journey feverishly exploring the much-revered old masters and honing my fundamental skills. Thirty-five years later I finished my undergraduate degree.
My first semester of graduate school at Savannah College of Art and Design provided the catalyst for my evolving creativity. The years of self-direction had painted me into a bubble. I had stagnated with old master-inspired mimetic realism and my work was stale.
Often referring to this work as my Alpha and Omega sculpture, Birds of a Feather represents the impetus for the creation of the “Portals” body of work. The portraits in the installation were created as my first project at graduate school and are watercolor depictions of my favorite silent movie film stars. My professor warned me that although they were beautiful renderings, they were mimetic copies and lacked originality. I placed them on the wall in my studio for a year and just stared at them. Unable to move forward, I realized I was trapped. The prison bars appeared the next day.
