At some point in the mid 1980s I changed from looking inward with the mandalas to looking outward with the horizons. I had a clear mental image when I closed my eyes of looking out onto a vast horizon and started doing things like lying on my back on abandoned roads and looking out into space. When looking at the stars the light of those stars, from all points in time and space, converge right where you are -- not metaphorically but physically. I then found myself looking at paintings by Mondrian and Malevich with their sense of timeless order and introduced proportional divisions into my horizons. The infinite and the timeless seem to me like two poles of thought and experience. We can't actually see infinity but we can think about it. Mathematically we can even contemplate some infinities that are larger than others. The timeless on the other hand is rooted in direct experience. When watching a fire one observes that it it constantly changing yet always remains the same. That is the kind of timeless I am referring to and nature is full of it and it is a quality I want to evoke through proportion.
The first two images below were the first in the series. Over time I started positioning squares on the horizons and finally floating spheres, grids and other patterns through spaces (at which point they became the "Patterns in Space" series).
Media: Colored pencil with oil pastel on Black mat board
Size: 10" x 40" (give or take an inch)
Date: mid 1980s
Price: $700.00 (currently in royal blue frame)
Media: Colored pencil with oil pastel on Black mat board
Size: 28" x 40" (give or take an inch)
Date: mid 1980s
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Title: Horizon with bars (silver and blue)
Media: Colored pencil on Arches cover Black
Size: 10" x 28"
Date: 1987
Price: $100.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars (violet)
Media: Colored pencil on Arches cover Black
Size: 16 x 28"
Date: 1987
Price: $80.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars (yellow and orange)
Media: Colored pencil on Arches cover Black
Size: 16 x 28"
Date: 1987
Price: $90.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Blue*
Size: 11 x 26
Date: 1987
Price: $90.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars and boarder pattern
Media: Colored pencil on Arches cover Black
Size: 12" x 31"
Date: 1987
Price: $90.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars and squares (symmetrical)
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Blue*
Size: 13.5" x 26"
Date: 1987
Price: $190.00 (currently in older royal blue frame without mat)
Title: Horizon with bars and squares (asymmetrical)
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Red*
Size: 9" x 26" (in 16" x 32" frame with double mat)
Date: 1987
Price: $190.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars and squares (asymmetrical, indigo and gray)
Media: Colored pencil on arches cover black
Size: 9" x 24"
Date: 1987
Price: $190.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars and one pink square (asymmetrical)
Media: Colored pencil on arches cover black
Size: 9" x 24"
Date: 1987
Price: $190.00 (unframed)
Title: Horizon with bars and squares (asymmetrical with watermark)
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Red*
Size: 8.5" x 26"
Date: 1987
Price: $190.00 (unframed)
Media: Colored pencil on Canson's black
Size: 18" x 24"
Date: 1987
Price: unavailable (I am pretty sure I still own this but I don't know where it is.)
Media: Colored pencil on Canson's black
Size: 18" x 24"
Date: 1987
Price: unavailable (I am pretty sure I still own this but I don't know where it is.)
Media: Colored pencil on arches cover black
Size: 10" x 24" (in 18" x 31" frame with double mat)
Date: 1987
Price: $150.00
Media: Colored pencil on arches cover black
Size: 8.5" x 23" (in 12" x 29" frame with double mat)
Date: 1987
Price: $220.00
Title: Horizon with squares and squares in the bars (symmetrical)
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Red*
Size:
Date: 1987
Price: Unavailable (I have always loved this work and I am pretty sure I still own it but I don't know where it is.)
Title: Horizon with floating frames
Media: Colored pencil on Roma Red
Size: 8" x 26"
Date: 1986
Price: $190.00 (unframed)
Media: Colored pencil on Arches Cover Black
Size: 12" x 26" (give or take an inch)
Date: 1990s
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Media: Colored pencil on Arches Cover Black
Size: 12" x 40" (give or take an inch)
Date: 1990s
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Media: Colored pencil and oil pastels
Size: 18" x 24"
Date: 1990s
Price: $220.00 unframed
Media: oil pastel mono print on black paper made by drawing on the back of the picture above as if it was a sheet of carbon paper.
Size: 18" x 24"
Date: 1990s
Price: $150.00
Price: $220.00 unframed
Title: Horizon with monuments
Media: Colored pencil on arches cover black
Size: about 16" x 40"
Date: late 1980s
Price: Unavailable (Another picture I still own it but I don't know where it is.)
Media: Colored pencil on Arches Cover Black
Size: 12" x 32" (give or take an inch)
Date: late 1980s
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Media: Colored pencil on Arches Cover Black
Size: 14" x 30" (give or take an inch)
Date: Late 1980s
(In 1988 I quit smoking, drinking and getting high. At the time I held on to a mental image of being adrift on a vast ocean but tethered to a star on the horizon by an adamantine cord. Although struggling and craving in the present moment I felt like I was being reeled in like a fish on a line connected with the source and origin of life.
I have since created several variations on this image with different proportions and varying degrees of intensity. Most have been framed without mats but somewhere around here I have one framed with a double mat, which should be too big to misplace and yet I can't find it.)
Media: Colored pencil on colored paper
Size: 18" x 24"
Date: Late 1980s
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(This work was left rolled up in a tube in an airport and was never seen again. Hopefully someone is enjoying it and it wasn't thrown out or blown up.)
Title: Irregular horizon (indeterminacy)
Media: Colored pencil and oil pastel on Arches Cover Black
Size: 20" x 40"
Date: Late 1980s
Price: $240.00 unframed
In these last two images I had started to play with the idea that what I was doing with the overall proportions and frames of a view into space could be applied to the line segments of the frames. It grew out of an exercise in thinking on the right side of the brain. As I would draw the line I would concentrate on making each line segment different than the segments that came before. This forced a particular kind of concentration when creating and demands a particular kind of thinking when viewing.
When I was taking some of my first drawing classes in college the instructor urged us not to buy posters. He stressed that it is better to buy a small drawing from an unknown artist than a poster reproduction of an old or modern master. I took that to heart and after graduation I thought I could compete with the kind of popular mass produced prints by more popular artists that one finds in every print and frame shop by making simple affordable original drawings. They were mostly quite minimalist and drew their aesthetic qualities from the proportional relationships of windows and bars and the views into deep space. While I did sell a few most of these were just a little too minimalist, too abstract and austere for my community.
*Roma is a beautiful paper with a surface like fine sandpaper that is a pleasure to work on. Unfortunately I've since learned that it fades when exposed to sunlight. Buyers are urged to frame or reframe these with museum glass that blocks 99% of UV rays.