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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.

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While I was in Chicago I saw the exhibit “Girodet: Romantic Rebel” at The Art institute of Chicago. The show featured the works of Anne-Louis Girodet de Rousssy-Trioson. Many of the large paintings in the show included reclined figures.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

When I created this painting I decided to make an abstraction of a reclined figure. I rendered my abstraction with colors used to promote the show. Imitating Girodet’s work I had a light source illuminating the figure.

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In the spring of 2006 I went to a special screening of Steven Soderbergh’s “Bubble.” Soderbergh was on hand to take questions after the movie. The film concerns two workers at a doll factory. One is a young man and the other is an older woman. Their friendship is changed when a young woman is hired. There is a murder.


acrylic on canvas, 5" x 5"

Anyway, the older woman in this has a facial expression that is very similar to the ones on the dolls’ faces. During the film there are two scenes in which a blue spotlight shines on the older woman’s face. That is the focus of my painting. I wanted to capture the feeling of the epiphany scene, if you will. I wasn't worried about attaining a likeness of the actress. I just wanted to communicate those two moments.