My Medium?

As a professional artist, people often ask me; "What is your medium?" I find that question to be one of the hardest to answer.  Often, I jokingly reply; "Well, that depends on what day it is?" The truth is that I cycle through a wide variety of mediums at various times.

I have my studio mediums which are more crafty such as decorative gourd carving and painting, oil & acrylic painting, stained and fused glass work, jewelry and sculpture.  All of these types of art are done after my morning workout.  I spend 4 to 6 hours a day in the studio. Many of my art projects take several days or weeks to complete because there are often multiple processes required.  For example, gourds must cure,paint must dry, glass must melt & cool, etc.  Sometimes I may have as many as 3 projects going at different stages of completion.

All of my art work began when I was about 2 years old with a pencil so it should come as no surprise that the medium to which I gravitate most is drawing.  I enjoy doing design work and realistic drawings and portraiture. In fact, that is how I got into photography.  I would take a photo and learn all the details of an object, a leaf, an eye, whatever from drawing and comparing to my photo.  Then I realized that many of my photos were works of art.

As a photographer, I prefer to shoot at dawn and dusk and my subject is primarily wildlife and natural landscapes.  However, in spring, I shoot raptors like eagles and hawks before the leaves hide them.  In summer I shoot amphibians and insects like dragonflies & butterflies during midday hours at rivers and ponds.  I love fall foliage and waterfalls and winter is ideal for ice falls and beautiful sunrises.  In the afternoons in most seasons I like to go for a hike with my dog or to one of several nearby lakes with my kayak.  I take my camera along on these trips and have gotten amazing wildlife shots. I often use my images as
templates for my drawings.

My art is more than an exercise in drawing  or photographing or sculpting what I physically see.  I try to communicate an intangible emotion or meaning in a captured moment or a visual piece. Sometimes removing the color of a composition or adding a bit of color in an otherwise monochromatic image can illicit a reaction from my audience. Sometimes a complete abstraction works better than something realistic.

In any given piece, I am obsessively trying to convey or illicit something in its creation to the viewer.  It could be an emotion, or a memory, an appreciation or even just a smile.