The Rhen Collection
The Rhen collection is named after my nephew who suggested that I place my artwork onto footwear. The collection is based on a piece of my artwork entitled "Cobra". I remember from an early age my love of trying to capture worms and snakes with my bare hands. I loved to scare my mother and sisters with my catches. I grew up in the mid-west and after a rainy afternoon or evening the worms would come out of their holes because of the flooding of their burrows, they would also use this opportunity to mate. I was an avid fisherman and nightcrawler's were some of the best baits around. I suppose someone will point out the obvious Freudian connotations of a young boys obsession with snakes and worms. I think everyone has a feeling about snakes and worms. The fear of snakes ranks pretty high as a phobia. I have read that dreaming about snakes means you are having anxiety about something unexpected coming out to get you in a bad way. I have spent most of my adult life living in the western United States. I love to explore the West's wild country. I have had my own personal run in's with the Western rattlesnake. The sound of a rattlesnake does exactly what it is supposed to to do. the rattlesnake rattle strikes fear into your heart. I once stepped onto a hollow log and a rattler was inside and it went off. Well you can imagine the sound of a rattler inside of a hollow log. I gave the rattler all the respect in the world. The snake isn't a large creature but the universal symbolism and awe that it elicits from the global populous is pretty universal. I remember a time when all I wanted to do was to draw cobra's. I mean the cobra is so cool looking. I cobra with hood that retracts in and out perhaps one of the coolest things out there. I even had my mother make a bunch of photo copies of my Cobra drawings. My mother was a world class secretary and she had got a new fangled copy machine at work. I was obsessed with the idea of an instant copy of my work. I thing my sketches of the muppets 'animal' also made the copy list. My mother eventually cut off my copy machine obsession.
The shape of the snake can't be underestimated in my work. I'm obsessed with curves and waves. The snakes curved shape is otherworldly in it's perfection. I mean waves, ripples, riffles, runs, eddies and it's undulations swim over my brain. Gravitational waves, the brain washing waves that happen whilst we sleep and the waves crashing onto the beach all inspire and move us to move. Shoes help us move around. People all have a gait a rhythm wether they want to admit it or not. People each move in their particular way. In people's movements can be seen the curves that catch our eyes and propel us forward. Bryce canyon in Utah also has some towering cobra snake like towers that also com to mind with my love of the figure of the snake and the cobra in striking position. A dental hygienist said the my Cobra shoes looked like an alligator. I also like alligators but I have never live in close proximity but I have spent some time in there habitats in Georgia and Florida. Alligators move in a very curved fashion, very sheik. Alligators are living dinosaurs and are the original gangsters in my opinion. Alligators are full of curves on there body armor and they move so gracefully that it's hypnotic. The gators like snakes create primal fear that has one cowering and shuddering in fear. A person hunches over covering there internals in a protective position before almost playing dead during a bear attack.
The colors of the snakes and alligators with their surroundings also can't be ignored. In my art piece entitled "Cobra" the background colors match the markings of the cobra. Alligators also blend in perfectly with their surroundings. The snake and the alligators take their fashion cues from their surroundings, perfect organic camouflage. I am trying to represent the reptiles in my vision of their surroundings and what they would look like in my surrealist artistic interpretation. I think my designs are my version of an urban/suburban/rural camouflage, influenced by my minds eye view onto my external and internal environments.
The Hope Collection
The Hope collection is named after my niece Hope who was killed in an auto collision. The Hope collection is based on a piece of art titled "Grass fingers". The title comes from some from some green like tendrils that appear in the corner of the work. I created "Grass fingers" while I was visiting with my nephew and his parents after the collision. Rhen and I were hanging out with a group of his friends on a balmy Ohio summer night. The fellows were playing a video game tournament and the room was filled with youthful exuberance and high energy. I sat in the corner drawing because I can't seem to understand all of the buttons on the video game consoles. I was sleeping in Hope's bedroom. I was trying to make some piece with the situation but the color red was a dominant color that shaded the aura of our familial collective experience. When I analyze or scrutinize the "Grass fingers" work it seems a tad hellish which I think is what we were all feeling a little oppressed by at the moment. The work seems to contain some green skeletal figures and some bombs going off and people wailing. When a family is faced with a senseless tragedy. The collective feeling of doomsday thinking can become overwhelming. People speak of walking thru the fire. They say he is running like his hair is on fire. Johny sings of a ring of fire. The preachers say hellfire and brimstone. We laugh about campfires being the original televisions. We can not look into the fire without seeing it consume all that we put into it. Fire warms us but if you get to close it destroys us. I guess the Red background color in the "Grass fingers" to me has a look fire. There are some orange flame overtones also layered over the red. The black hole that fringed with the wailing and the bombing is pulling us into the hell-scape that we all want to believe we can escape. We want to become bigger then the black hole but it always pops back up and shows itself. There is also a beaked animal that is biting and clawing itself back into the black hole.
The room was a little hazy as I made "Grass fingers". The boys were loud and boisterous as they played a sports video game. I feel that we all need to scream in red and black. I hope that everyone feels that fire can giveth and can also taketh. The green colors then cover up the black and red and gives us hope that we will all go thru some sort of rebirth. I think this is wishful thinking. The times seem dire but the political theater has hazed over our collective conscience so that a person has problems seeing friends from foes. If you look into the fire an see that it will consume you as you get to close, remember all that burns bright can burn out quicker than you want it to.