Coffee

Disdain for flowery sofa art drove the creation of Coffee, perhaps because the original was a wedding gift for dear friends whose good taste I admire to the point that I would have been embarrassed to give them something more typical of my own work at the time. I'm most grateful for the result, as I realized how much contemporary realism could appeal to me.

The aspect of the painting of which I'm most proud is the way it invites onlookers to mentally conjure most of the beauty it has to offer with their own sense of human empathy, rather than some concept of a beautiful place to be. This makes the experience of any piece of art run a little deeper than the prettiest scenery, which can sometimes have a distancing, even numbing effect on one's sense of what is beautiful.

What takes up most of the frame, in fact, is one of the ugliest old buildings in Glendale -- an abandoned sugar beet factory some claim to be haunted. Even my beautiful daughter who posed for this image is costumed and coiffed in a frumpy, anachronistic manner. (I can't remember why I chose that motif.) But most of the lines of perspective in the image converge upon a point just behind her temple, where only her attitude matters. Thus the pleasantness of the setting narrows down to her still-lovely face, which does the job of casting a warm, satisfying glow over the entire scene in a way that the sunshine could never pull off alone.

01/22/08