Hudson 5441

Steam is an experience. Steam is unstoppable, steam is power.

New Class for Modern Travel 2, (The Cincinnatian).

Steam.  A study of steam, movement, emotion and motion.

Around the Table

Two steam engines wait for their duties on the tracks that radiate from a turn table.  Seeming peaceful, they are actually powerful beasts of iron, steal, fire, water and steam that will soon be moving at speeds close to '80 mph.The locomotive in the foreground represents another NYC Hudson.

Pennsylvania Dawn

This painting is the start of a new direction for my body of work.  I took some time off, not only from blogging, but from painting as well, and when I came back I had a whole slew of fresh ideas. The subject matter is still basically the same, but the approach couldn't be more different.  As a result, I am enjoying the painting process more than I ever have. The idea is to portray the steam locomotive more like it really was, and to also capture the feeling of the world in which they operated.  In order to do this I had to think about atmosphere and lighting, but also overall mood.  In a way, I became more realistic with the painting, but I discovered a way to approach light, shadow and color in a way that opened my eyes to future possibilities.

The new approach allows me to blend realism and abstraction, but keep the image intact.  It may be hard to believe, given the subdude nature of this painting, but over all, when I did this painting it was the most fun I'd had in years.  Make your own call, of course, but I for one am happy about my fresh discovery.

100 Bad Dreams

This painting is about darkness; about the clang of the coal scoop on the firebox door; about the cold of the night and the heat of steam in an industrial wasteland. It is a bit like something from a nightmare, (or a very dark fantasy). A dream so thick, it could be cut with a knife, like the slitting of a throat under the dim yellow street lamp in this "sinking boardwalk town". Painted in 2003, I was listening to a lot of Tom Waits at the time, and thinking about the overwhelming effect over industrialization can have on a land scape. I abstracted the factory and bridge by having everything bent and swaying on the canvas. I was also trying continue in the vein of some small drawings I was doing at the time. I felt it was still important to post this painting because my Train paintings have gone through many different transformations as a body. While each individual painting evolves as I work on it, the body of work also has evolved. I was still dealing with many of the same themes, although the idea of using trains as a symbol of modernism had not completely flushed itself out yet.