POW!

When I was fourteen I worked in a firework warehouse with a kid named Terry Hewitt.  
Once we taped some skyrockets, roman candles and shells together to make a giant super-rocket.
 It rose about ten feet, leveled off then traveled three hundred yards before exploding
and starting a grass fire in the pasture of  an adjoining farm.  
It was the only time I ever saw Terry Hewitt scared.  
Not about the fire, or our boss, but about what his old man would do if he ever found out.

(36" x 48" Oil, Acrylic on board)

The original Golden Boy

And in this corner, with only one defeat....

12"x18" oil, acrylic on canvas
(Private collection of Chris and Maureen Donovan)

Cutting/Pasting

                           

                          The term collage derives from the French "coller" meaning "glue".

                       This term was coined by both Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso in the 

               beginning of the 20th century when collage became a distinctive part of modern art.

                   (Sketchbook Cover.  Drawings, photos, magazine clippings, vintage wallpaper, construction paper.)

Alive!

Two Headed Shetland Pony / Ape-raham Lincoln

(24"x36" acrylic on vintage wall paper)

Four angels carry Hank Williams to heaven

One of Hank Williams' most overtly religious hits, "I  saw the Light" 

was not in fact inspired by biblical visions.

According to biographers, Hank was passed out in the back of a limo

when he raised up out of his drunken stupor and literally saw the light...

the beacon light of a local airport near his home.  

(24" x 36" Acrylic, oil stick on canvas)
(Private collection of Cindy Caponera; Pete Decoste)

As he got older, George became less and less curious.

"Not So Curious George"
The Sunny Day Apartments
Dec. 10, 2004  Los Angeles, CA
Sometime after 2:00 p.m.
(10"x12" acrylic on board)

THE SPIN BACK THEN (same as it ever was)

The day is almost done, when look!
 Heaven now defend him, the charm of his life is broken,
 for Custer has fallen; a bullet cleaves a pathway through his side,
and as he falters another strikes his noble breast.
He is the last to succumb to death.
 And dies, too, with the glory of accomplished duty
and the benediction of a grateful country. 

Excerpt from the book "Heroes of the Plains" by J.W. Buel  -- 1881

(24" x 30" Oil on canvas)

Nothing I have done before foretells what I will do today

On February 11, 1990, in Tokyo Japan,
James "Buster" Douglass defeated Mike Tyson
for the heavyweight championship of the world.
  As a 35 to 1 underdog,
many consider his victory
one of the greatest upsets in boxing history.

(Fictional self-help pamphlet.   India ink on cardstock)

Cars and Birds go by

Since losing his memory, Ed Thornburg had only nostalgic feelings

                                          for the feeling of nostalgia.

1971 Chevrolet Impala   (24"x 36"  tempera, acrylic on canvas)

A Bear To Your Door

Things to Think 

  

Think in ways you've never thought before.

If the phone rings, think of it as carrying a message
Larger than anything you've ever heard,
Vaster than a hundred lines of Yeats.

Think that someone may bring a bear to your door,

Maybe wounded and deranged; or think that a moose
Has risen out of the lake, and he's carrying on his antlers
A child of your own whom you've never seen.

When someone knocks on the door,

Think that he's about
To give you something large: tell you you're forgiven,
Or that it's not necessary to work all the time,
Or that it's been decided that if you lie down no one will die.

~ Robert Bly ~

(10"x12" oil, acrylic on board)