Bones Paintings - 2015

The elegant shape of the human pelvis and femur has been a constant source of influence for me since my earliest days of art making.  The solid forms, so rhythmically sculpted, and the perfectly designed structures have given me vital information for many of the landscape, still life, and abstract paintings of the last 25 years. 

This knowledge all came together in the summer of 2014.  As I glared at my x-rays showing a deteriorating hip replacement and a disintegrating Greater Trochanter, I saw past the dysfunctions to the beauty of the bones.  My bones.   

As I searched for medical treatments, I also searched for more and more ways to look at the bones.  My studio was cluttered with plaster casts of the pelvis and femur and antique drawings made from early explorations of medical corpses. I studied them sideways, upside down and inside out. 

Each drawing and painting began to take on a life of its own.  Some are idealized views of how I wish my joint had held together.  Others represent my desire to see the bones as abstract forms.  Making this work reminded me that God’s handiwork is beautiful, no matter its condition.  Some of us have obvious disabilities, and some of us do not.  In some way, however, we all suffer, we are all vulnerable and we are all weak.  That is being human and that is what I see in these bones.