I’ve completed over 300 paintings in two decades, an average of more than one per month. That does not include numerous sketches, graphite drawings, castings, artistic photographs, and three-dimensional art. Choosing favorites from creations that are all one’s “babies” is daunting. But here are my favorite fifteen watercolors and my interpretation, fully realizing yours may be completely different. Differing interpretations are one reason art is so powerful; the symbolism has many layers.
Ostracized
2009 Watercolor & Graphite 10″ x 13″ on Handmade Paper
The enormity of the devastation and death of my first life was sinking in. As usual, I am portrayed as a woman—sensitive, young, and still beautiful. But ashamed and heartbroken. And alone. Utterly alone. No one attempted or was able? to penetrate the inner shell of the fragmented person I had become. It is an eerie foreshadowing of the remainder of my Christian friends and my two children and their husbands and families heartlessly casting me out two years later— ostracized to this day. Banished. Exiled. Cast Out. Expelled. Excommunicated. Censured. Denounced. Blacklisted. Belittled. Shamed. Invisible.
Reprise
2012 Watercolor and Graphite on Handmade Paper 22″ x 30″ (Artist Personal Collection)
This is the second iteration of this painting. I first painted it in 2009, but my former wife condemned it so much that I burned it in our fireplace. She despised my nudes, and she loathed me for the affair I had in 2006. The years 2006-2011 were the most horrific of my life. And yet, times of suffering birth authentic art. When Gina heard this story three years later, she urged me to paint it again, thus the name Reprise.
In many ways, it is a self-portrait. In most paintings, I portray myself as a female, emphasizing my feminine self. The evocative feeling of movement symbolizes the vertigo I felt in life then, and the voluptuous nude body is perhaps a hope for the future—to be whole again, to live a life without shame. There is no face because, at that time, my identity was fragmented. I did not know who I was or who I was to become. It is in monochrome because the beauty and color of life was non-existent. And I am on a pedestal as I was most of my stage-life, creating a psychosis that caused those who lauded me to anathematize me.
Father, Forgive Me
2012 Watercolor and Graphite on Handmade Paper 12″ x 15″
Again, I am the female. My psychotherapist and I analyzed this dark and symbolic painting for several weeks in 2012. I have been stripped, violated, and hanged by the church. My red and purple clothing symbolizes the colors of the kingdom of God. The rose was what I was promised as an innocent young man, or is it my beauty taken away? The priest (the church) is calloused and cold-hearted, a corpse. A voyeur of my suffering and my body. The Bible, as it has been for centuries, lies nearby and ignored—or perhaps, its teachings are being ruthlessly practiced. The gray and stormy sky is a stark juxtaposition of the colors in the foreground, soon to be dust.
The Show Must Go On
2013 Watercolor & Graphite 12″ x 16″ on Handmade Paper
No wonder so few people leave the stage of their own volition. It is incredibly difficult and disorienting. Especially if you have been on stage since age four and your identity is completely wrapped up in approval—the applause, the admiration, and the affirmation of the masses. Fortunately, I found a therapist who specialized in helping people (celebrities, movie stars, and leaders) leave the stage. I will never forget walking among the thousands of people flocking in for the Nashville service (the show) a few weeks after I had resigned and realized they would all see someone else on the stage performing. It was my first day of growing invisible. My stage light was burned out. Fortunately, it was the first day toward becoming who I really was and discovering my true identity, my true self.
Fixation
2013 Watercolor on Handmade Paper 22 1/2″x 30″
This is one of the rare times I am portrayed as the male. The female (the mother) is the church. Like a little child, I was taught and coerced into drinking the milk from her breast, never growing up to be a man who knows himself, never allowed to have real food. The church keeps reproducing slaves (doulos), enticing them in any perverse way possible. And her face tells you, the viewer, that she knows she has me where she wants me. She says I am not allowed to touch her, stand on my feet, or question her—just trust and obey, for there’s no other way to be happy. I feel this is my most potent painting.
Forsaken
2016 Watercolor 16″x 20″ on Handmade Paper
I suppose every painting is a self-portrait of the artist. This was one of the rare paintings I did during our years in the wilderness at Kalien. I was in the process of renouncing my faith, and I felt forsaken, thus the words on the cross. Yet my true self, the beauty of my body, is peeking through. The gold symbolizes the former religion but also the yellow of sunrise; the ropes are untied. I am tired and exhausted but hopeful.
Self-Portrait
Watercolor on Handmade Paper 12″ x 16″ Artist Personal Collection
This is Gina’s favorite painting; if anyone knows the two sides of who I am, it is her. More than anyone on earth. The story of Jekyll and Hyde inspired this, the light and dark sides of my shadow.
The Nearness of You
2011 Watercolor on Handmade Paper 18″ x 24″ Artist Personal Collection
This is the most passionately painted watercolor of my life. Looking closely, you can see splatters of color as I slapped the paint on the paper. I was weeping and sobbing. This was the climactic moment of the struggle to stay in a shame-filled marriage that no longer was viable or to leave with the person I felt near to, who loved me and celebrated me for who I was becoming.
Metamorphosis
2013 Watercolor on Handmade Paper 12″ x 16″
The butterfly is emerging; the cocoon is coming off. Rather than a ground-dwelling caterpillar, she is a free-flying butterfly: from a sinner to a slave, then to a chrysalis, and finally, an adult butterfly. As we suffer, we change. Our experiences and the passage of time shape us. As we become who we truly are, our beauty permeates the world. We shed our clothes, pretenses, and repression and become whole.
Naked and Not Ashamed
2009 Watercolor on Handmade Paper 18″ x 24″ SOLD
The clothes are off—a foreshadowing. They really weren’t in 2009, but I longed with all my being to be naked and not ashamed. Finally, in 2012, that dream began taking shape. The color is not there yet, still the cold blues and grays of first life, but the painting is a harbinger of the colors of freedom.
Freedom
2012 Watercolor on Canvas 24″ x 26″ Artist Personal Collection
This canvas is in my atelier as I type these words. Looking over at it makes me happy. Gina has a reproduction in her bathroom. The original frame was warped on the trip across the Atlantic from Florida to Spain, but I would not trade her for anything. She epitomizes my freedom, comfort in my skin, openness to experience, and confidence in the future.
Serenity
2012 Watercolor 14″ x 37″ Artist Personal Collection
There have been a few transcendent moments in my artistic life when I stand back and realize I’ve created something beyond my capabilities. This painting is one of those creations. It has hung over our bed since 2012. I often commented to Gina in our first home in Leander, Texas, about how peaceful our home felt. Then we moved to Lebanon, Tennessee, and I would echo that sentiment, “Wow, this home feels so peaceful.” Then again at the farmhouse in the Appalachian wilderness, and again at the beach house in Dunedin—when one day, I stopped cold. It wasn’t the homes, it was Gina. Wherever she was, there would be this permeating peace—serenity. Serenity is an essential mental goal for my fourth stage of life, from age 75 onwards. To me, this painting emanates that quality.
Passion
2009 Watercolor on Handmade Paper 12″ x 16″ SOLD
This painting is another of those beyond my capabilities. My life has been characterized by passion. Passion for music, sex, communion, freedom, questions, food, drink, art, books, and so much more. I am so honored that the original hangs at the entrance of a multi-award-winning music studio in Nashville, Tennessee.
Individuation
2020 Watercolor on Art Paper 18″ x 24″ Artist Personal Collection
There are so many layers of symbolism here. The sword has a dual meaning. The sword of the Hebrew Bible pierces and divides our soul and spirit—religion mainly tried to murder my true self through shame, fear, and guilt. But it also represents the sword of truth, the Quest for our true beings, and for me, that connotes my physical self—sensuality, mental self—curiosity, emotional self—communion, and spiritual self—freedom. Again, I am portrayed as the woman, a voluptuous, well-endowed woman who has been crucified but is slowly regaining life. The grays of death are gaining color; the crown of thorns is soon gone. The mandala in the background represents wholeness, and the symbols represent my physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual essentials. The colors symbolize blue sky thinking (freedom), the gold and orange of sunrise and sunset, and more.
If you’ve made it this far, thank you so much. I hope you enjoy the art and my vulnerability in the descriptions. It was eye-opening for me to write this post. I’ve never chosen my favorite paintings, and I’ve never considered why. Wow. Here’s to another 300 paintings, castings, sculptures, and other mediums. Here’s to creating and the joy and insight it brings.
