1) The first pour

2) Refining drips to tree trunks.

Shibata Zeshin is an ever-present source of inspiration twenty-five years after our second introduction. There are other masters who influence me, however, Shibata rides on my shoulder at eye level. It is he who has had the greatest influence on my point of view.

The Honolulu Academy of Art is an mélange of buildings, courtyards, and gardens. It has galleries not only labeled by country and period, but also by air-conditioned or not. It has tokens of European art; a kind of ‘one of each’ from the expected museum stars in their western collection. It has a better and more selective collection of Japanese and Chinese arts. The European collection is near the front door. It is air-conditioned, and the overheated tourist can quickly get a hit of culture and get back on the beach in an hour. But the shady caverns of the adjoining buildings are for the hunter, collector, the spelunker for beauty, and those sweaty artists. The Asian collections shine like jewels scattered along the corridors in the out buildings. I found inspiration in paintings and screens, and touched by the Edo period of Japanese art. I would sit and visit them as old friends. At that moment, I didn’t think of past artists as ancestors. I just liked the art.

For months I had passed through the same corridor noticing a door, but did not stop. I guess what caused me to push open the dark gray glass door that day was the hope it would be cooler inside. It wasn’t. It was marked air-conditioned, but inside it was dry and not cool. Shibata worked on rice paper, a delicate surface. This whole gallery was made to protect his work from mold and moisture of tropical Hawaii. One collector had donated an entire gallery of Shibata’s work to the Academy. Shibata Zeshin was a graphic artist. He made his living doing what a graphic artist today does: calligraphy, posters, and advertisements. He made exquisite brushes and painting kits fitted into lacquered boxes for the gentry. He painted what he knew, and was aclaimed for it. I learned he was beloved as a national treasure during his lifetime, an exquisite honor. His art told me he was a humble man - funny, and very wise.

For a painter a brush mark can mean everything. It doesn’t matter if you use a brush or your finger, one’s mark must stand for meaning, must communicate. That day I first saw Shibata's work, I could not see brush marks for what he had to say. His simple spare style illuminated his message. Zeshin’s masterworks were about revealing the human heart, and he was touching mine, for art reaches out to life.

I’ve always learned from what I’ve seen. I make art to reaffirm my experience. Most of what wisdom I’ve gained has been through the visual media. Literature may be beautifully written, but it is the images I see from the story that show me understandable pictures. That enlightens me to their meaning and illuminates humanity. The old saying, a picture is worth a thousand words makes sense, considering what follows describes my turning point at seeing one singloe painting by Shibata Zeshin. I won’t use a thousand words, for his painting is a simple truth. It is important for you to understand its impact as my turning point. It informed me of a compassion I didn’t know I possessed. I discovered something about myself. I saw not only a blueprint of Shibata’s heart, but also mine.

His painting is in portrait format, a vertical rectangle.  The rice paper is mounted on silk brocade hung as a long scroll on a wall. The paper is mostly unpainted, the center void of any subject matter. One’s mind reads the space as a chasm. In the upper left corner a misty rock outcrop reveals a gnarled tree holding fast to high cliff. On the other side of the paper, mist rises out from the deep chasm. The misty path clings to a ledge of the mountain. The landscape emerges from the bottom right of the painting and disappears at the top right corner. The rocky path is a steep, treacherous climb. Halfway up sharp boulders, trees, branches, and cracks in the trail challenge a group of figures. All their heads are down, intent on their effort, as they are moving upward toward the top of the painting. They appear as humble peasants. Each has a large hat to keep off the rain. Each carries a considerable burden on his back. All are dressed for the cold. They are rounded from layers of clothing. No one figure looks to another, as each is focused on his next step.  Every figure has a mouse’s tail. It is the tail that is the last thing Shibata has allowed the viewer to see. It is as accurate in rendering as the rest of the painting. It blew my mind. He told me what he knew of life.

In 1835 – Shibata reached out for me in 1985. He got me and I got IT. His message: no one alive has any less struggle than anyone else. We all live, and sometimes we have a chance to touch one another to remind them we are not missing anything. I can appreciate and share compassion in our struggles. Sometimes I am closed to others. I refuse to see what is right in front of my face. I think Zeshin’s alchemy on me that moment in front of his painting made clear that everyone of us has knowledge of their own heart’s understanding. It is always present. We simply must agree to stop what we are doing to find our access to it. I try, and I work at that.

So, I'm making this big painting for the Mendocino Coast Botanical Garden's annual event, Art In The Gardens. The request was for a painting that would be used for promotion, auction, advertising, T-shirts, posters, and cards.

I’ve been painting at this monster since October. At this writing, it is now mid-January. Yesterday I had to wrest control from the painting and shock it with MY leadership.  Today I’m happy. I know what I must overcome. I've been stuck in one area, 2 feet by 2 feet. I'd lost my way in details. The whole image is in three panels - total width 120 inches or 12 feet X 84 inches or 7 feet. It takes over my living room. Paint now covers the entire canvas. I no longer have to work in stages of wet against dry. I have taken photos these last months after each major event the canvas has gone through. Baby pictures, I tell myself – the struggle is the reward. (I have the photos on my computer as a slide show.)

I had to assert leadership. I’ve been obsessive, going round and round over the paintings first reading. The area where I want my viewers eye to land first, after taking in the whole. You must know this, I fell in love with the first reading – it had taken me, like Goya, like Zeshin took me. It was water – the image of a small cascade over stones into a brook. I fell into the trap that a painting has over the painter. That of protecting that first reading with over-painting its supporting area. It began to look labored. I had to act. I picked a paint, a color, like nothing else in the canvas and boldly made marks where other areas of interest must happen to draw the eye away from that first powerful reading, one's first love. It worked. I’m shocked how well the attack went. The experience was not unlike the bird’s physical assault on an intruder to draw attention away from the nestlings. My offspring, the whole painting, escaped harm – my eye, the viewers eye, moved to another point of interest.

This had happened early on, but in the compositional process. I was content with a large pour of paint. (The pour was made up of about five different paints mixed consistently and poured into a central wet area on the blank canvas.) I was most happy to live with this area and I had to cross it with vertical lines that would be the trunks of trees supporting the forest’s canopy. The pour was beautiful, spotless, and made that area of the canvas quite vulnerable. Any spatter of paint on it - any last minute repair would be obvious. I was concerned not to damage this area with unconscious marks. (Let me explain ‘unconscious’ marks. There aren’t any. Stupid moves spring to mind – one has to repair the damage. I don't like having to be clever to disguise my mistakes. If no one else sees what I had to do to repair the surface, I do.)

I had to cross that delicious pore, confidently, courageously, and with reasoned integrity. The pour was perfect – the background tree branches and trunks had occurred naturally as a result of standing the canvas against the wall. The wet paint dripped over the bottom portion of the canvas. Painting between the drips defined the misty distance of the stand of trees.To make my marks across the pore, I used the length, ten feet – 140 inches, took the ratio 1.6185. I used my computer. This measurement gave me assurance to mark on that length, according to Plato, Archimedes, some savvy Greek, the divine symmetry of that length. This is Art 101 – NOTICE: Composition. Golden Mean, Golden Section, Divine Mean, Divine Symmetry was the rule in Greek art, architecture, city planning, sculpture. The rule also applied to the human form and to plant life. Consider the length of your arm, 1.6185 ratio and you arrive where your elbow is. Measure the length from your elbow is to the tip of your fingers and you come to your wrist. Measure a flower, the divine mean will show up where a branch leaves the stalk. Look at the Parthenon see where the roof begins. It is a ratio. Why they called it Divine is anybody’s guess. I used this ratio to define where my tree trunks best cross my pour. My first mark was at 86.64 inches from the edge. I kept multiplying that again and again – I needed lots of trees.

Next, to get real picky, I looked at Gothic architecture. The architects were Masons, thinkers. They looked at a square and the length of its hypotenuse. To drop that hypotenuses length to the base-line of where that square sat made the total length, AND the place where the square rested on the line was their point of significance - 1.4 of the length they chose. Not nature, not ratio – geometry. They were the cathedral builders. I wasn’t being indiscriminate; more tree trunks were needed. 1.4 divided into 140 inches is 100 inches.  I kept dividing the last number till it didn’t amount to much.

More trees.

Next I divided the length 140 inches by seven. I needed to honor the Japanese. Using their heads quite literally, they recognized a person to be about seven head heights tall. So, the Japanese best assessment of any composition had to be in relation of the head to the human body. They composed their buildings in accordance to the size of their sleeping mats – more mats, bigger buildings. I took that as my "head’s-up." I planned to paint the closest trees to the viewer on the measure of seven of my heads to the length of the canvas. With those three different compositional ideas as places to plant my trees, it was a ‘go’ for me. I crossed my “don’t fuck-up zone.” I had my forest.

Today I start my fifth month of focus on the canvas. I don’t have a title yet, curious for I know the subject so well. I have it as a part of my life. I circumnavigate it in my living room. I tell myself, “I’m still in the discovery phase.” And, that is true.

At moments, ideas pop up while I pass the painting to turn on a light. When I search for a cat toy, or vacuum. I instantly know what I must paint. A light area to move the eye around the canvas. Or, I have to soften an area with a blur. Perhaps I have to darken an area, a passage, so the eye can move faster to the next area. Ideas come fast, like, “…wouldn’t it be great if …?” Sometimes I'd lose it. Lost in thought, as I stand over the water boiling for tea, my eyes would pass over the surface of the painting. I’m surprised to discover the area I left alone. At that moment of painting I was unresolved as to what to do with it. Now it has come full blown as a message that the waiting was the perfect decision. In another part of the canvas, painted since that time, has made the initial mark relate in such a way as if another master’s hand intended it. I was inspired to paint a curious blue color un-planned that would separate my foreground from the middle ground. It now relates perfectly to a haze in my first pore. Both old paint and now new have significance. Surprisingly, it tells the viewer a mist or haze of moisture rests over the running water. Goya, was he at work again with me? Zechin?

Do I, once again, discover my spiritual nature is making sense out of the turmoil of my life. I can live with not knowing.

This last two weeks I've painted in the morning. I silver-leaf the background sky in the evening. I have several motives. One, I want to see what the whole will look like upon completion with the leaf. And two, subtle nuances can then be chosen and painted in relationship to the force the impact of the leaf's glare has on one's first impression. I must get the leaf to work with the paint. Remember, my job is to mesmerize an eyeball. I tease someone to move to a spot on my canvas, I then reward them with a beauty/truth when they find it. I play this game until they discover what it is that the painting says. At times I forget, during my labor, why I love my job.

To leaf an area is tedious work. The painted surface must be made ready, the right color, clean, and dry. The glue must be mixed to the consistency of half & half (milk). The leaf must be cut to the proper size, in this case, 2 inch squares. The light I must work under to see the leafing area must be bright enough to see where I must place the leaf, not so bright as to cause the silver to glare making my eyes tired. It takes about three hours to leaf two square feet. With my deadline for completion date, I’ve cut it close. The silver will tell the viewer that in the distance there is a glare from the sky. It will tell locals, they are looking south in the afternoon. That they are experiencing a slight cloud cover, and a fog is rolling in west from the sea. The painted area will give them the temperature and the humidity.

I’ve chosen a silver square, placed many times over on a two inch grid, to emulate the sky. I use a square as it is a symbol of order – all sides are equal. But I fracture the square to let the color of the background thru. I believe a square is a meaningful concept for order is a necessary illusion. The background color that peeks thru the metallic leaf creates a relationship as beauty. I need them all to move through my life. I find glare, sometimes, to be pain-full. It takes effort to see beyond it to details. I believe that effort makes one's experience substantial, worthwhile. Truth and/or beauty do not come easily.


With the silver sky complete, I can choose the values and colors for my figures. The second week of February, I had a date to photograph the staff of the Botanical Gardens. The day before, I spoke about it to my friends at a local coffee shop. I told them who was in the upcoming photoshoot. Al Seeman, asked what kind of dog would be in the painting. He’s a dog person. I said I had two dogs coming to choose between, but I would lean toward the dog with the languid tail. “The dog with the languid tail…” Al’s tone brightened. “Max. The dog with the languid tail.” He shook his head, his face in a spasm of delight, then blurted between bubbles of laughter, “Languid tail – that is so high-felutin. Languid. Geeze! – Max?”

I was delighted with his reaction. I told him that "languid" was the precise word to describe the dog’s presence. I wanted a happy dog, one who would follow his master gladly. A languid tail is the proper body language for the dog I want to paint. High-felutin, or not. Languid is the word. Something happened after I left the coffeeshop. I liked the phrase. It told a story. It ran around in my mind.

In spite of a rainstorm, the photo-shoot went really well, and picked the right dog. The other dog’s tail was not in the least languid. I couldn’t have asked for a better easy going pooch. I was please as well when it came to the models. Later, I sized the photos on my computer, printed them out. I readjusted the figures sizes several times to fit in relationship to the path painted on my canvas. I cut the figures out of the printouts, pasted each figure on my canvas, playing with the relationships. I gave myself two days to live with the shock of figures appearing. I knew finally, what I needed to do. I painted a neutral backgroung field for the figures, a low intensity gray blue. This directed my imagination toward the correct paints to choose to represent the figures in the painting’s environment. I did not want the people to stand out. They are to be seen well after the viewer’s first reading and understood towards the end of their experience of the painting.

Rick Droz, photographer-videographer, came to study the dynamics of the canvas. He would photograph the image for publicity. I was concerned the glare from the silver would throw off his camera’s light readings. He recommended an approach that assured me the digital reproductions would be acceptable. I had moved the canvas that day to paint the figures in a sliding north-light. The space was cramped so I lifted the panel the height of a chair to make it easier to paint. The light was perfectly even. I think the set-up inspired him to make a test with his video camera. You can view Rick's sampling movie at the beginning of this page.

I usually paint alone in my studio. But I agreed to his plan that he would capture me painting. I had made some decisions the night before he arrived, a plan to attack the painting that next day. I told him what I planned, and he agreed to stay out of the way. A broadcast microphone recorded my voice as I painted the path the figures would walk. He recorded the video. It all checked out when we saw the rough footage. The sound was good, the video was sharp – interesting and acceptable. I was able to put my judgments away.

However, I was surprised at my reaction when he asked if I would paint more. I couldn’t make a new decision with him in the room. Confused, I tried, made some feeble brush marks, but I wouldn't accept the result. After he left I repainted the area.