24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • SOLD

The Turtle House - as we called it when some friends and I lived there for a few years in the 1990s - is located on Main Street in Grass Valley, right next to the Center for the Arts. I ran a screen printing studio out of the garage. Until I started painting in 1996, that is. Then it was all painting, all the time. Here are a few paintings of the house, that I still have. I probably made 40- or 50 paintings of it during my time there.

24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2500 • SOLD

As you can see I would take out the background of downtown Grass Valley and put the house… somewhere else. I don’t know where these places are or were. I was almost unconscious while painting.

24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2500

Sharkie was our move-in stray, broken tooth showing against his utter blackness. He’d rest on the porch and every time anyone opened the door he’d get a bonk. Could never talk him out of it.

I suffered from serious brain issues at the time - brain abscess toasted the left temporal lobe - and I knew that in a very different by close-by dimension, Sharkie was a giant Chinese-style lion. Protecting me. I appreciated it a great deal. I was vulnerable.

24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2500

I have a thing about monasteries. I’ve always felt like I belonged in one. Past lives influence, without doubt. But not on the card this time around. But I can’t help but invoke the feeling whenever I can. High in the mountains, exalted situation. But, again, that’s not where I am this time around. I was called for and I came.

30” X 40” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2750

As you can see I love kitchens, especially windows, looking in, looking out. People do go to the kitchen at parties. The dishwasher in there was from the 50s. It still worked. It quit tho and it was replaced with something new. Probably broken already. Entropy is on an enhanced schedule these days, if you haven’t noticed. I believe this is a wonderful painting.

24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

A house can have a mood. You have to allow it, let it happen.

24” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

This house was unique in its ability to be shuttled from one world to another. The upstairs was one giant room, with windows covering 3 sides. It was a veritable spacecraft one could guide from the upper windows, looking south toward the Odd Fellows. But in this scene, we definitely are not across the street from the Odd Fellows. No. Do not open the pod bay door.

24” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

Storm coming.

24” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • NFS

We’d plug this baby in some nights, that’s for sure. Galactic craft glowing in the night. Most people did’t notice, as you could expect, but it happened. We must have been landing, returning from some very special place. Only moods are remembered. As if from a dream, but then what isn’t?

24” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

We had no black dogs on the premises - at least those that would be detectable with what you might call ordinary vision. Of course there are those who certainly did see something, but most forget about it in a few seconds. That this house, for instance, wasn’t on Main Street, but high in the Himalayan mountains. And that there is indeed a black dog to keep Sharkie company.

18” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

Inexplicably the Turtle House one day found itself, along with me to make matters even more inexplicable, on the Delta. Flat marshy territory with nothing but a small tree on the horizon. The wind blows - that’s the action. It’s quiet. Better than a lot of places.

20” X 24” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • SOLD

Seemingly the same house, the same back door - but no. Not the same, ever, even moment to moment. It was a challenge living there at times because of all the time disruptions. I’d rush down to the garage - my studio - in the morning to see what I had done the day before. Such a mystery.

18” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1750

These two vertical pieces are, like all the others, my favorites. Something about the aerial view, the long road ahead is seen, and the long road behind implicit. I won’t say too much about this one. I’ll let it speak for itself.

18” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1750

I think we had temporary residence near a kind of hostel. A kind of hostel you might frequent in a dream. The kind where you can’t find the room or your keys… but this one doesn’t inspire the usual dread in such situations. Merely the suggestion - transmitted who knows how - that everything is fine suffices to make everything wonderful.

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30” X 40” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2500

Here he comes.

This one, and the ones below, are the rest of the first shipment of paintings from The Attic In Massachusetts.

36” X 48” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $3250

I lived in this extraordinary house in Nevada City until I got evicted. Owner hadn’t been paying the mortgage, haha. But it was the bomb while I lived there - the best studio I ever had, high ceiling, gorgeous windows, my god. Anyway, this is South Pine St, curving down to the bridge over Deer Creek. In the distance you can see our Art Deco County Courthouse.

32” X 40” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

Another scene from a childhood in another world. Such memories of summers at the farm. They don’t exactly haunt me - but they’ve got a heaviness, a reality to them. As if I were growing up to take on a position of responsibility.

24” X 48” ?? ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1250

I’ve favored this one for years, and I’m not sure why. Perhaps its simplicity. But I know it’s the slim dark road disappearing into the trees, so mysteriously, where does it go? Am I going? Where is this house with the bright red flowers?

32” X 40” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1000 • SOLD

One of my earliest canvases - it was stretched over an old screen printing frame and probably doesn’t have standard measurements for stretching.

18” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $850

From my days on the line. I learned to cook at a Denny’s when I was a dishwasher and the cook cut his hand. The manager asked me “wanna learn how to cook?” To be frank, I was a better short order cook than I was at anything else I ever did. Took great pride in it, as a matter of fact. One day a guy got violent because his well done toast was a little too well done. The asst manager forcefully managed his exit. I should through the window, “Have a Nice Day!”

I meant it!

24” X 36” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $1000

On the road, again, always. There are several places to stop and rest for awhile. If that’s what you need.

36” X 48” ACRYLIC ON UNSTRETCHED CANVAS • $2000

A true nightmare. I mean I had this nightmare more than once. Endless tables, and I’m the only waiter to show up.