Etsy, A Venture Adventure

Stalin and Company

4" x 4"

Mixed media on wood

I've been spending a lot of time getting my Etsy shop going.  Check out House of Travis.

Sketchbook Excerpt

 

I've been doing some comic strips in my sketchbooks for fun.  It's an easy non-commital way to express myself. Rene Rodriguez is partially responsible due to his insistence on napkin drawings at a trashy Chinese food dive a few weeks back so he could submit the drawings for a show.

Donald Sultan

Don't you love thumbing through dated art magazines and stumbling across an artist you love?

 Burning Cross (Against Seduction)

oil, tar, spackle, watercolor and graphite on tile on wood

96 x 48

1982

 Forest Fire

tar, watercolor, oil and spackle on tile

96 x 96

1983

Early Morning

latex, tar, and tile on masonite

96 x 96

1986

I wonder what happened?  I want to ask him why his exploration of fire turned into pop flowers, form, content.  I guess, stripped down.

 

White Flowers

tar, enamel, black flocking, spackle on tile on wood

72 x 72

2001

Who knows, maybe the flowers are as grim and potent as an early morning fire.. or it's as simple as a change in outlook, or an exploration comes to an end.  One must amuse one's self.

House of God

House of God

24" x 24"

Mixed media on panel

I'm trying to pictorialize the end of God.  I will likely pursue this endeavor for some time to come.

No Exit

No Exit

16" x 24"

Mixed media on panel

No Exit, detail

This is a painting I did for the Facing Fear show at Launchpad Gallery. It's an homage to one of my favorite philosophers, Jean-Paul Sartre. I wanted to capture an existential crises, subtly.

The young boys are caged in a prison (life). They watch a fire, frozen in awe (the fire represents a finite existence, burning however brightly for limited duration). In the background, faintly, soft smoke curls out of a furnace (certain end, a fire goes out as fires do). In summation, they're contemplating their own mortality, death hanging over them.

Psychic Resonance of Dead Friendships

Psychic Resonance of Dead Friendships

12" x 12"

Mixed media on panel

I did this painting for a friend of mine who, through circumstance, is no longer a friend of mine. After the friendship ended I got to thinking about magic and psychics. Some people talk about psychic residue. Connection. ESP. Ghosts. They all went together in this painting.

This was intended as a study but I believe it's better than the larger piece. I think I'll chuck the larger piece in the trash.