50 paintings in 50 days

purple urchin studies in ink on panel with various water sources

6″x 6″ unframed

Sanchez Art Center Pacifica, CA Sept. 8 – Oct. 1, 2023

e conchis omnia – all from shells

Sanchez Art Center’s 15th annual 50/50 Show

I chose to focus on studies of the exquisite purple sea urchin tests(shells) for this show. I have been painting these for a while now as a kind of meditative practice and have yet to exhaust my interest in them.

I loved the opportunity and challenge to create 50 works in 50 days!

Knowing the time frame would include long work days and vacation, I needed to keep my materials and supplies to a minimum and easy to travel with. Besides my harvested urchin shells, the panels I work on, ink, a few brushes, small trays to catch run-off water, and paper towels, all I really needed was water.

WATER. Of course it is everywhere but not all water is the same. Changes in the seawater the purple urchins dwell in has in part led to their overpopulation explosion and the demise of the kelp forests along the Pacific coast. This is just one example.

I decided to work with local water sources that I could collect as much as possible, wherever I was at the time, and was surprised by some of the results. When using LIVE water, from the sea or lakes or even birdbaths, there came a point when the images began to exhibit an almost feral quality, set free to run wild.

These purple urchin shell studies are as much about getting to the spirit of these remarkable creatures as it is about the raw materials and letting them do what they will.

the paintings below are still available