Tag: Visual Art

I & Eye

Charcoal on paper. 21″ x 15.5″. 2004.

I drew this during a summer semester at SCAD in Savannah.

Rastafari say “I and I” where the rest of us would say “we” or “us”. The belief underneath it is that there is no separate speaker and listener, only the same self showing up twice. It runs parallel to In Lak’ech Ala K’in, a Mayan phrase usually given in English as “I am another you.” Two different traditions, the same idea: oneness, and the sense that the person across from you is not really across from you.

I was discovering that philosophy around the time I made this, so I named it accordingly.

Drawn in 2004, photographed for archival in 2026, and shared here for the first time.

Bermuvibe 3

Acrylic on canvas. 19.5″ x 29.5″. Framed 28″ x 38″. 2003.

This one is Surf Side Beach, which was my favorite beach on the island.

There were never a lot of people there. A boiler reef sits close enough to the shore to snorkel out to, and the waves were easy enough to boogie board on.

The first of these came from a photo of a street. The second was a commission. This one is a place I picked myself.

Third of three, and the last one that was still in the archive.

Painted in 2003, photographed for archival in March 2026, and shared here for the first time.

Bermuvibe 3, acrylic on canvas, 2003. The painted surface without the frame.
Bermuvibe 3, unframed.

Bermuvibe 2

Acrylic on canvas. 29.5″ x 19.5″. Framed 38″ x 28″. 2003.

This one was a commission.

I lived in Bermuda. The colors come out of that, but they are imagined. None of it is what anything actually looked like, and that was deliberate. I was not trying to document a house. I wanted the painting to carry what the place felt like.

This is the second of three Bermuda paintings I made. The first went up here earlier this month, and the third followed it.

Painted in 2003, photographed for archival in February 2026, and shared here for the first time.

Bermuvibe 2, acrylic on canvas, 2003. The painted surface without the frame.
Bermuvibe 2, unframed.

Bermuvibe 1

Acrylic on paper. Painted space 15″ × 22″. Framed 22″ × 29″. 2003.

I lived in Bermuda. I painted this in Roswell, Georgia, about two years after we moved away.

It is not a painting of something I was standing in front of. I worked from a photo of a real street somewhere on the island. The place is real. The color is not. I made that up.

That was deliberate. Bermuda was a lively place to live, bright and busy and full of exciting things going on, and that is what I wanted the painting to carry. Not a record of how anything actually looked.

This is the first of three Bermuda paintings I made. The second and the third are here too.

Signed and dated on the painting: 5/3/03. Photographed for archival in January 2026. First time it has been shared.

Bermuvibe 1, acrylic on paper, 2003. The painted surface without the frame.
Bermuvibe 1, unframed.

2003 Charcoal Trees

Charcoal on paper. 18" × 24". 2003.

I don't remember making this. I would have been a junior in high school, in AP Art. That is about all I can tell you about the origin.

Pulling it out of storage earlier this year made me look twice. My first reaction was not that this was particularly special. Then it grew on me.

Part of what got me was the composition. There is no reference point in the piece, no horizon, no ground, nothing that tells you which way is up. I could have hung it upside down just as easily. I looked at it both ways and chose this orientation almost as a mini creative expression.

The other thing was recognizing my own hand in it. I have a lot of work from different periods, and when I look across it there are consistent threads: bold lines, compositions that push against the edges, a certain directness and sloppiness in the mark-making. This piece has all of that. Even without remembering making it, it is clearly mine, clearly in the same family as things I was making before and after. That recognition is what grabbed me. It did not feel like something I had discovered; it felt like something I had made, which is a different thing.

Photographed for archival in June 2026. First time it has been shared.

Am I Someone?

I pulled this out of an old portfolio recently. I had no memory of making it; no idea when, what I was thinking, or why it didn’t have a name. It had been sitting in there untouched for over twenty years.

In the summer of 2004 I was at SCAD (Savannah College of Art and Design) for a summer art program, on an architecture track. I was in a buddy’s dorm room. He’d brought an acoustic guitar. I had just learned “Is There Anybody Out There?” by Pink Floyd, which is a quiet, classical-sounding piece, and when I played it that day it hit me: I wanted to pursue music instead. Not because I didn’t love making art, I do, but because of the way music made me feel. That was the moment.

I went to Berklee after high school. The visual art kept happening in the background, the way it does when something’s yours but not yet public.

Looking at this piece now, it reads like that period. A lot of elements that don’t quite cohere, things pulled in different directions, patched together, not yet resolved. That’s an accurate picture of being seventeen. I titled it “Am I Someone?” because that’s the question I see in it.

Chalk pastel on paper. 2004.