All posts by artiststevel

Articles on travel
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Tonight’s questions– For fellow creatives-what inspires you to create and do words often come from pictures or do pictures follow words? For the non-creatives-what about art attracts or interests you and again do you think of images while reading a story or do images tell more of a story than words? I hope to have lots of comments and insights on both sides of the creative spectrum-maybe we’ll all learn something about what inspires us and where true inspiration originates from.


In this blog I will include a painting and than the words behind them-normally that would be poetry but in this case it is more of a prose description of a time and place.

At the beginning of football season-my son was ten I think, I sat on the ground watching storms pass through the sky over the field as all the parents wondered if they would call the practice but it continued. Later we even sat on slick bleachers and ignored the fact that we were all soaked, that’s parenting I guess and I can tell you not one seemed put out-okay we hide it well-another parent thing.

This first painting was inspired after the storms had subsided and a swarm of dragonflies stormed in the sky around the great burst of light that broke through the clouds. The light was amazing and the break in the rain was a welcome spectacle for us drenched parents at the beginning of another football season.

The wonderful thing about that space and time of
watching my son practice is I actually get to sit and spend time observing, the time is his not mine, we actually act like a community-If I wanted to be hoaky I would say the light coming through the clouds was hope for a winning season or maybe just a spark of hope through the storm, but I won’t be hoaky-no really, I won’t. The inspiration for it was the beginning of the season, my son and I enjoying a time that was precious and unable to be duplicated. It was a moment in time-the dragonflies, the end of summer and time to notice the simple things-my life stopped for that moment and even when it was a burden to go at times, even sitting in the pouring rain, it was somehow worth it and the relationships my son         and I developed were wonderful.

The bottom picture is another pastel of the same place, different time- he was more like five and the sport was soccer, another group of people to know, another great moment in our lives captured. These images were all sketched out for several years before I ever actually finished them, it’s almost like they have to ferment for a while.

Now we are in football again, different group of people, again moments captured that create images that become pastel sketches and always remind me of those moments. I’ll always remember the dragonflies, the light of the evening and the light of the storms that would pass-all of these feelings and moments become the colors in my paintings.

Articles on travel

Funeral for a Celebrity

The body in the standard layout,
the same state, the same ritual, 
a line of cars,
the press were pallbearers
taking pieces of the corpse like ants
bits of anything left
scraps of dirty remnants of their lives
nothing sacred
nothing safe
all of those human moments exposed
sadness was the standard costume
crying eyes of those who took posesssion of the corpse
but no one knew her
sterile bits of words
from voices of strangers
tomorrow the front page
all the wars their demons rage
all the things they shouldn’t have said
no respect, no emotion
for the dead
the possession
a celebrity becomes
the possession
all decorum lost to the story at hand
speak the words like vultures at a feast
without choking on a single word
cast out across the news
every dirty, filthy thought they ever had
and how they once did drugs
and how they beat their kids
facts like seasoning
that add or detract
to fill the space and compensate
for all the dignity we lack……

Articles on travel

Blame….

A child’s suicide
Because he was being bullied
What do we do in this world
That gets more violent
ignore or Punish the violence
Raise the child in a warm wonderful place
That hides societies’ cruel uncomfortable face
Ashamed of our darkness
Ignore the disgraceful
Tear down idles of sports
And movies
And wonder why
Our children are mean
Attack fast food for hurting our children
And wonder why our children
won’t take responsibility
cockroaches in expensive suits
sell lottery tickets
for damages rendered
everyone is a potential victim
everyone is a potential donor
and let’s sell the kindness of disasters
join together with tears
and ignore all the corruption
and the fingers reaching
imprison the Christian
dismantle the church
disgard God from every corner
of our lives
and question who’s responsible
for a child suicide.
Articles on travel

Another Landscape


Indifferent blackbirds in pastel fields
Demons entangled
In last years broken stems
Broken rays of light
Find tired eyes
How quick and quietly
Compromised
That  I can not see
The sun
Or wake without the light
Without noticing
Gray
A shadow across the lens
Keeping blackbirds from getting in
When all around me clouds
The silence of  words
streaming out
Articles on travel

A Winter Sky


You don’t know what road to take
Your eyes are cold and gray like winter
How do you fit in your skin
When your not like them
And the winter drags like the flu
As all the trees that grab the sky
Seem closer and darker to you
And the orange sky you remember as a child
Was the beginning of the snow
How quietly the sound of emptiness
In harmony with being lonely
You grow in size and weight
The forest dark and foreign
How many days did you walk by the stream
Searching for a reflection that never came
But it was you in that dark place
So close and dark like the dying trees
How sad that no one knew your face
Even you- a stranger on your own set
Where all the vines pulled at sinews bleeding
Did anyone notice you had forgotten your lines
Did anyone think to mercilessly leave
You behind
But you in that dark place
Remembering December like a life that passed you by
All the gray sky
The sadness of trees indifferent in the cold steel breezes
And that orange sky that hung for you like a beacon
As if there was a safe warm place
Not too far away
And if you found the road you sought
You could simply walk away…..

Articles on travel

Do you have problems finishing things? My summation of an aspect of the creative process.

Sorry for the delay in posting but I am in the process of getting more paintings together to send out and working on more avenues for writing poetry and showcasing painting. Let’ start this blog out with a question as I want feedback from followers and would be followers-If you are creative than I am asking about creative projects and if not I am asking about your processes on hobbies or home projects. Here is the question, Do you tend to start multiple tasks simultaneously and if so why do you think? Secondly are you happy with the progress in finishing multiple projects?


I will explain my process and the way the creative process tends to ebb and flow for me. I think that often the inspiration is often either beyond the skill level or the inspiration is not strong or clear enough to be able to finish the image in the expected time. I will start multiple paintings, each are very different and have distinct moods, I will work through cycling between up to ten paintings at the same time in hour segments on each-it is almost as if in an hour I get too close to the image and can no longer see past the details. Each time I start on a new hour with a new image I have a new perspective and problems in composition or color seem to be more clear.

Another reason for this cycling through multiple paintings is the fact that if I am in a rainy day mood, I can’t paint a sunny day and vice versa. I can’t usually paint because I feel like painting, the feeling is there or it’s not and the unseen cues for the next step in the painting often is completely vague. A process that has helped me get better at continuing a painting past the initial inspiration is with teaching-I believe I have learned more discipline because regardless if the thought or next step is vague you have to work through the awkwardness.

A problem I have with painting multiple works is the fact that some don’t get finished for years, which could be a good or bad thing-either the inspiration grows and becomes something different or a weaker inspiration strengthens over time. I have recently begun pastel images of ideas I have sketched out ten years earlier and only now have either gotten brave enough to work through the doubt or have finally solidified the image well enough to commence to painting.

I usually paint from memory, I assist that vision with multiple pictures for details but much of the image comes from memory and depending on the day, the vision grows from crystal clear to extremely vague.
If I am in good form, the colors and the composition tend to create themselves and I tend to just be the vehicle for the image that is already pretty much created in my mind.

I am working on several paintings right now and much of them are very different than previous works, the subject matter is city images, rainy evenings, mixing the water and night sky together in an urban setting. I’m excited about getting these out very soon. I will blog about the process and how I finally decided that they were finished and actually signed a finished work-one can dream-I hope I can keep the inspiration going and finish them this year. I guess we’ll see. I hope some of you send some comments and I could have more insight to the process of completing something.