The modern era was really kicked off with, first, the photograph, and then, the "moving pictures". Early film makers often used trains, as they showed movement like nothing else and could help captivate audiences. In 1903, Edwin S. Porter's The Great Train Robbery was considered a milestone in film technique. Buster Keaton's 1927 film, The General, was a great moving picture that used a steam locomotive more as a member of the cast than as a prop. Some of the greatest shots of steam locomotives in history are from Keaton's film, including a spectacular wreck, (using a real locomotive).

It is in these above mentioned ways that the early movies and the steam locomotive are directly linked together, and both symbols of true modernism. This painting is slightly older than some of the others, (produced in 2006), but it deals with the same ideas of movement and modernism.

Steam Modernism

Yet another painting, loosely based on the New York Central Hudson type locomotives. I continue working through ways to pull all my ideas together about modernism and what it all means in my paintings. This painting was inspired by a dream that I had. A brooding storm was overhead, and I was on a long, steam powered train, moving through a very barren landscape. This painting gets the general feeling of the dream across, while keeping with my ideas about steam modernism.

Southern Bridge #1

This painting is obviously much more representational than some of the other paintings. I set out to do it in stages and abstract it like the others, but I got so caught up in the beauty of the original black and white photo that I was using for reference that I never abstracted it greatly. The image I used for reference was a stock Southern Railway publicity photograph taken in the '20s - '40s. I did the painting again later with a different feel, but this is #1, probably the better of the two.

The sky is a brooding pink as the steam engine climbs to greater heights, traversing the tall stone bridge.

New Class For Modern Travel

There is, of course, more emotion in some paintings than others. This painting holds a lot of emotion for me, as I was going through a difficult time when it was painted. That is probably why I believe it is more successful that some of the others. While I want to leave the emotional interpretation of these paintings to the viewers, I would like to talk a little more about my process for this one.

New Class For Modern Travel was both carefully planned out and wonderfully spontaneous. As with A Night Train, I prepared a panel with a recessed pocket in which a smaller painting would fit. On the panel I first carefully painted a sign or advertisement with text reading, "New Class For Modern Travel". Under the text I drew a quick line drawing in paint of a Baltimore and Ohio locomotive, known as a president series pacific. I then painted the sign out. This incorporated a general advertising look of the 1920s, then almost completely covered by an abstract painting of the same train in all its modern glory. Then, in the reassessed pocket, the same train again from the same angle in a more representational form, which shows the pure beauty of the industrial and commercial design of the time. The word modern is easily discernible, and the words new and class are also legible if you look closely.

A Night Train

In this painting, I went with my idea of layering paintings to create a greater overall painting. This painting is on panel, and I added another dimention to this painting by cutting a hole in the panel in which I could perfectly fit a small painting. This is another dark painting, and the larger part of the painting creates the effect that a fast moving train has at night, where all that you really see is a faint impression of the locomotive rushing towards you, and with a flash of side-rods and a rush of steam, she is gone; disappeared into the cold night air. The smaller painting inside the larger painting is more representative of what you would see if you could freeze the moment in time; one frame in what could be a series.

This was a real event I witnessed, when I waited track side, on a frigid night, for the mighty Norfolk and Western class A to thunder through my mother's home town of Rome GA. This was about 1990, and I was quite young, but I remember it as if it happened yesterday.
This painting has actually been untitled until now. I might still change the title, but A Night Train seems fitting because it is the A at night.

 Close up on painting inside of painting, (Night Sound):

Permanently burned into my memory was the dark night when a large steam locomotive (N&W 1218) and her train rushed out of the night and passed within feet of where I was standing. I dreamed about this moment for years. I can still hear her whistle echoing against the surrounding hills. I was only 9 at the oldest, but the thought of this moment still sends chills down my spine.

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.

Untitled T-1 Northern

This painting was started right on the heals of Century 1. Slowly the painting materialized and was finished after Modern Power. Some of the ideas from both paintings carry over into this one. The colors I used are supposed to give a heavily industrialized feel, and the darkness of the locomotive adds to the shear mass and power that it exudes. The locomotive is based on the freight hauling Reading T-1. Four of these locomotives still exist, although none currently run. They are beastly engines, and quite a sight to behold, even in the cold silence of their dormant state. Once again, I didn't put an identifying number or a railroad name, therefor allowing the brutishness of the behemoth be the focal point. Although many artists who paint trains tend to focus on recreating times and places in history, I want the viewer to see the train as a symbol and an object of beauty, rather than a historical reference.

Of course the history is still present. The T-1 Northerns were built in the Reading's own shops, using the boilers from smaller Consolidation type locomotives.

Modern Power 1

Modern Power 1

This painting has been SOLD

It was started soon after Century 1, but I didn't actually get around to finishing it until at least 6 months after I started it. Sometimes paintings go through many metamorphoses before reaching their final potential. Sometimes, these changes are part of a planned process, and other times it just happens that way. This painting is a result of a combination. I found it to be a very successful painting, conceptually keeping with the others, yet containing some new ideas simultaneously. As you move through the layers, you can see how the train has endured through time. Moving from one era to the next, finally emerging as the modern steam engine you see pictured. There are 4 locomotives in addition to the class J depicted front and center. 2 of the 4 are too small to be noticed, and 1 is so faintly painted into one of the layers that it is also hard to see. Most people will only see 2.

The industrial city skyline in the background represents Roanoke Virginia of the 1950s. The locomotive is one of the famous Norfolk and Western class J locomotives, known for being among the most modern steam locomotive ever built. These engines were also made famous when in 1982 a class J, number 611, was restored to service. Many people probably remember seeing 611 at one point or another as she racked up mileage, pulling excursions for the NS steam program. She was removed from service in 1994 and has been silent ever since. I saw her run several times, and she had a huge effect on me as an artist, as a railfan, and as a lover of good machining and fine industrial design.

Century 2

This is another painting based even more specifically on the New York Central Hudsons, (the beautifully streamlined version). The streamlining of this locomotive was designed by the famous industrial designer Henry Dreyfus in the 1920s. The locomotive, the colors, and my treatment of the buildings are all very modernist.

Oh, and I forgot to mention my main reason for painting trains; their shear beauty.

Century 1

I can very directly say, now, that making train paintings is life long project. I was originally going to title my first post "beginnings", but that would not be a very accurate title, since I've been using trains as my subject matter since before I can remember.

This Painting is called Century 1. The title came from the fact that I used the 20th Century Limited and the New York Central's Hudson type locomotive as an inspiration. The name also seemed fitting because of the dawning of a new century, (the 20th century that is).

My usage of color represents the life and movement that springs from the locomotive, while the dark blues that creep in on the edges represents the darkness of the urban landscape that the train traverses. The locomotive seems to be bathed in a yellow street lamp light. In this painting I was inspired by the abstract expressionists as well as Film Noir and the city of New York.

The smaller steam locomotive in the little vignette is a locomotive off of the Pennsylvania railroad, the main competitor of the NYC. It represents one of their large freight hauling Texas types, but there is no headlight or number plate, leaving the locomotive essentially unidentified. The lack of these elements also makes the engine seem decidedly more dead than the very much alive Hudson.