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One place I spent a lot of time as young person was the New Orleans Country Club. My siblings and I enjoyed swimming there in the summer and playing tag with the other kids. We knew the place well. Some years ago there were some renovations that involved changing the hallways from pastel green to a red-orange. The damage from Katrina involved repainting. The interior halls are again green pastel and the furnishings are coordinated to go with them. I wish this color wasn’t so commonly used, however. Yes, I miss the red-orange.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

For this painting I used the greens I saw, but I didn’t worry about picking up any specific design. This is kind of a sequel to the red and yellow rug piece, which I consider of breakthrough work. There are certain pieces that surprise in good way.

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In July of 2006, I attended an art guild banquet at Smilie’s Restaurant. After the meal and the officer installation, names were pulled for the vases with flowers. The bouquets of flowers were tied together with ribbons. I won one of the vases.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

The ribbons became a souvenir of that night. The ribbons inspired me to make this painting. I took the colors of the striped ribbon and created my own striped pattern.

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After playing cards, I met my sister, my two aunts and my uncle for dinner at Dick and Jenny’s. We went early since the place doesn’t take reservations. The restaurant is located at 4501 Tchoupitoulas (chop-i-two-lass) near Napoleon Avenue in Uptown New Orleans. Dick and Jenny Benz based their restaurant on ones they like from this area and abroad. The building is a mid-nineteenth century barge-board-cottage that was formerly a grocery store and later on a poboy shop. The walls inside are covered with dinner plates bearing the names of the founding customers of the restaurant.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

As you might have guessed from my painting, the walls are orange. As for the design, it is a decorated dinner plate made of dots. This is not based any specific plate, but a general symbol for all the plates.

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Several times during 2006 a cousin of mine had several trips to the hospital. During one of her stays, I happened to visit when my mother’s two sisters were visiting. My cousin asked that I join them in a game of “Crazy Eights.” It’s been a while since I played. So, had to re-learn the game. It’s not often I’ve had a chance to play cards lately.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

For this painting I decided to use the four suits that appear on a set of cards: clubs, diamond, hearts and spaces. I also managed to squeeze some crazy eights in there. For this painting I kept to mostly red and black. The trick was trying to make them contrast one another without getting too dark.

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My family enjoys trying out new restaurants in the New Orleans area. For my birthday in 2006, we went to Fulton on 7, which is located in the Wyndham Riverfront New Orleans Hotel. The place had recently undergone a renovation. Anyway we enjoyed dining there.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

When I walked around a bit, I noticed variances in grays in the lobby, restaurant and restroom. The artworks in the restaurant served as accents of color. In the painting I had several nuances of gray. Then for my image I put a still life in front of a window. I used bright colors to depict the fruit. Again, I was after the feel of the place.

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In June of 2006 a friend from Arizona visited me at the Friends of Rivertown Fine Art Gallery in Kenner, Louisiana. She brought me a gift. It was a metal lizard that had dots on it. She had seen it and thought of me and my artwork. Well, it hangs prominently in the powder room of my home.



Well naturally I had to make a painting to remember the occasion. Sure I have the lizard, but I wanted to make a dot painting too. I decided to just work from memory since I wanted to make a painting my way. Keeping the spirit the object I created the painting below.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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The 2006 National Art Education Convention was in Chicago. The Hilton Chicago was the main hotel for a majority of convention events. The lobby, meeting rooms, ballrooms and connecting corridors were all very ornate. The hotel is loaded with eye candy.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

When I decided to make an image about the convention
I honed in on an elegant red carpet that had a flowery gold pattern. I set about to capture the spirit of this carpet that decorated one of the large meetings rooms. Yes, this one turned out very bright.

"a" Series Transition Completed!

On March 11th of 2007 I finished the “o” Series New Orleans. About the same time I began work on a new batch, the “a” Series. It wasn’t until April 3rd , 2007, that I was ready to add the dots. Taking what’s in my head and then translating that into some arrangement of dots has been the hardest part of making these paintings. I didn’t expect this process to be so dragged out, but that was exactly what happened.

Some pieces dealt with more serious events this time. Thus, working on the paintings was more difficult for me - beyond just the imagery. A number of the pieces depict visual references of forced changes occurring between June and December 2006. That’s why I have settled on calling this batch the “a” series Transition. I’ll discuss each work a bit later.

In the meantime I’ve begun work on the latter half of the “a” series. The remaining part of the title has not quite gelled yet. I’ll have to wait. In the meantime I’m completing the first coat of paint on the canvases. After this post, I will return to the explanations of the “o” Series New Orleans.

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acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

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In June of 2006, I attended the wedding of a fraternity brother who lives in the Jackson area. The wedding took place in a Methodist Church. Now I’ve been to my share of weddings and I’ve seen various traditions of attire. In this wedding, the groom and groomsmen all wore white. What was interesting is that none of their tuxes included ties. All of them had that “priest/reverend-like collar.”


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

One project, I have been wanting to do, was to work with very light pastel colors. Here was my chance to do so. In this painting I depicted the collar I noticed at the wedding. Having created several dark paintings in a row, I was ready to paint a bright one.

The order of my dot paintings is based upon when they are completed even if I work on several at the same time. As long as I have to mix colors used in several of the works, I tend to work on them together. Besides I sometimes need to let the dots dry on one while I work on another one.

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In June of ’06 I went to a screening of an “Inconvenient Truth.” Even before seeing it, I had read discussions about whether global warming had contributed to the severe hurricane season in 2005 or whether it was just part of the natural cycle of more active hurricane seasons. What surprised me was the discussion of the polar ice caps and rate at which they were said to be melting. Since I do live in a city (New Orleans area) that is below sea level, that issue hit home.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

Well I felt compelled to represent the issue in one of my dot paintings. I took a chart of rising temperatures and translated it into an abstraction using dots. Several folks have interpreted this image as a skyline from a city – including the person who bought the painting.

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This piece starts with the film “Night Watch.” I loved that this film had its own version of a vampire story, including a different world. In particular, there is a certain unconscious state shown in the film that inspired me visually. In one particular scene, a boy falls backwards as his eyes leave orange trail paths. That is what led me to create this image.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

I simplified eye shapes and added trails of dots that followed both eyes. This painting documents my variation of dot sizes. Following this painting I began experimenting more with dark colored backgrounds.