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Echoes

“Painting is just another way of keeping a diary” – Pablo Picasso

At some point, I realized that my new practice of painting every day looked a lot like what I was doing back in the late 1990s.  1998-2000 were amazing years for me.  I had a new job working at the Art Gallery of Ontario, where I was constantly spending time in the art galleries looking at really good art.  I had just gotten a little studio apartment in Cabbagetown and had returned to school to finish my degree. Under the guidance of Hugh Leroy, I had developed the discipline of drawing every day, usually without any particular direction in mind.  The goal was to find my personal drawing “vocabulary” through discipline and consistency in practice.

I ended up carrying those drawings around with me for twenty years. From apartment to apartment, relationship to relationship, even from Toronto to Victoria, I protected and cared for this massive body of work like it was my legacy.  The unspoken implication was that I would never draw or paint again and that I’d better cherish and hang on to these little drawings as best I could.  I even bought archival boxes for them to make sure they were well preserved.

I went back recently and looked through them all and fell down a rabbit hole.  It was wonderful to see what I was really capable of, even 20 years ago. More importantly was the realization that I was in fact capable of much, much more.

As a result, I decided to let go of some of them.  The past is the past.  I have a new faith that the future will take care of itself IF I take care of the real business of life today.  I think that’s the real art of life.

My memory of making these drawings is rather foggy, and they’re not documented well enough to say precisely when each of them were made, but I do know they came from that blissful couple of years.  I feel good about letting these go today.  It’s an act of faith.  I’ve found a new wellspring of  inspiration. I’m a lot less interested in the assurance of keeping them than I am excited about what comes next.

Some of the drawings are done on stable paper (ph-neutral, or even cotton paper), but many of them are on plain old copy paper, so I can’t make any promises about how long they’ll survive.  Nevertheless, they’re all mounted and matted using ph neutral paper and linen tape to make them last as long as possible.

Take a look around the “Echoes Series”, and let me know what you think.

 

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Sputnik!

In Russian, “sputnik” means “Satellite”, or “Fellow Traveller”.  I’ve been fascinated by the story of Sputnik I since I was a little kid: this little hunk of metal and plastic that zipped around the world saying, “beep. beep. beeeeeeep…”.  I also found it incredibly funny how this little tyke could be so threatening to the US political system.

I’ve mentioned digging through my collection of old drawings in the “Echoes Series” and letting some of them go. One of the things I didn’t mention finding was a little pile of half-finished screen prints.  I don’t remember exactly why I abandoned them.  Perhaps I just didn’t know what to do next with them, or maybe I just lost interest and wandered off.  It was an interesting reminder of the curious kid I used to be.  I was experimenting with different ways to make images using silk screen techniques.  I had a few prepared screens and would layer partial prints up in different colours.  The effect is beautiful, but unfinished.

I spent some time looking at these unfinished pictures and made a decision to finish them.

It was an intuitive decision – I really liked them, and I couldn’t believe I’d just set them aside like I did.  What came next was really interesting. I basically started a collaboration with my 26 year old self.  And I’m not just commenting on the past, the process has become as much about me learning from 26 year old Stefan as it is completing something he left unfinished.  Rediscovering the kid I used to be is a bit like discovering I’ve got a fellow traveller that maybe it’s time to get to know a little better.

Stay tuned…there are more of these to come.  I count about 10 of these prints I’ll be working on finishing in the near future.

Take a look at what I’ve got so far and let me know what you think.

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WELCOME

An art history professor and mentor once told me, “Art is a terrible investment.  The odds against you making any money speculating are astronomical.  If you’re going to buy art, find things you think are beautiful, and surround yourself with them.”

Another teacher told me that a work of art is never complete until it’s shared with others.

A couple of quick notes about the artwork you’ll find on the site:

  1. All artwork is original, handmade, and one of a kind*. 
  2. Most of it is small in scale, generally they’re “sketches”.  Whether painted or drawn, they’re the result of my daily practice.  Though some of them do go on to become larger paintings, I don’t spend time naming them individually.  What I can do is speak about them in aggregate, as part of a series.
  3. You’ll notice that many of them have the same name, like, “Just Play“, “Progression Studies“, or, “Echoes“.  They’re all pictures where I’ve followed a common instinct, or process.

I hope you find something here you like.

*Well, almost always one of a kind.  Recently, I picked up Lincut and Woodcut blockprinting.  In many cases, I’ll be experimenting with these media as mono prints, but where there are editions of them, it will be clearly marked and with the total number clearly indicated.