#63 - A Few Visual Tales from My New Stamping Ground from the Market-Frankford El and the Streets of Allegheny

                                                      "Sign of Life"

                                                        "Police Stop"

Fellow Art Lovers:

Yes, I’m still working. And this will be a relatively short blog posting, just to let you know you what direction my work is taking me, and show you a few examples of the kind of paintings I’ve been producing.

Frankly, I find myself influenced by the atmosphere of my new neighborhood, the people on El, and the people surrounding me.

Traveling in the subway cars of the Market-Frankfort Line, looking out at the rows and rows of houses from the stations, walking along the streets near my studio with the people who live there – I just see a lot of scenes that touch me and I want to paint.

And, I can’t tell you why, but I feel the desire to work on a larger scale. Maybe it has something to do with the fact that, even though some of the scenes are a bit gritty, there’s still a real beauty there.

As always, if I’m in my groove, I work pretty fast. That is, unless I hit a problem that takes some time to solve. But generally, a lot of these paintings kind of paint themselves.

“Sign of Life” just struck me. The architecture of a lot of these buildings is beautiful, even though they’ve been abandoned and often left to tumble into ruin. For me, this was a beautiful scene. The buildings looked empty, but when I see a glimmer in a window, I hope someone is using the structure for shelter.

“Police Stop” shows – for me – what can happen in a neighborhood when a police van stops. A lot of people are keeping their distance, even though they want to know what’s going on, and some of them chat with their neighbors. Like just about anywhere. Surprise! And, at the same time, the activities of the neighborhood just follow their natural course.  I believe that I’m going to try this one on a larger scale.

As always, please let me know what you think. I treasure your input.

Thanks for listening. And looking. 

Best,

Bill