Tucson Museum of Art and the Arizona Biennial '09

There are a few moments in one's life that are so meaningful that the details, large and small, converge into a kind of storm, a bit like the welcomed monsoon lightning that surrounded the glass walls of the Tucson Museum of Art tonight, bringing a rain of clear moments to a lifetime of dreams--and work with hands and paint. Twenty-four years ago I was cleaning pools for a living (just out of college). Each week I cleaned the TMA's fountain (just outside the west door from the museum). I distinctly remember standing out there sweating in the summer heat, losing prime on the pump, fighting with the skimmer and the crappy suction of the damn fountain, looking wistfully toward the cool, air conditioned comfort of the museum. As I turned to look at the entrance doors, I wished then that I could be inside. Tonight, I got that wish. I stood there with friends and family of forty years, eight years, and a  few years, and looked across the entrance hall toward that fountain and smiled across the distance. Here are a few photos from tonight's reception. It was a delight to see so many people attend. When they stood in front of my painting....whoa, I was in a dream. When they read my statement, I was grateful and happy that they were not bored. I heard the words again, "Success is not a function of individual talent. It's the steady accumulation of advantages." --Malcom Gladwell

Quick Study After Many Hours

"Success is not a function of individual talent. It's the steady accumulation of advantages." --from a very smart scientist whose name was torn away when his picture and quote were snagged from a magazine article on talent, luck, and the success that 10,000 hours can bring to anyone sufficiently diligent, blessed, and a little bit crazy, and how they can enjoy the benefits of success as long as they have patient and supportive family members who will help maintain an environment for growth, practice, and occasional appropriate praise, and then, placed on a refrigerator for perusing and meditation each day, as one reaches for the vitamins that sustain the body but not the soul--like paint and canvas and the smell of medium and good Blues music wailing from the boom box in the studio. Whew! (Gee, I love a run-on sentence now and again...) Actual credit to Malcom Gladwell, Outliers: The Story of Success.

But, I digress. This painting is of an area near Molino Basin at the base of Mount Lemmon. It's about forty minutes from my home. It's a great spot to see the transition between the desert and the Catalina mountains. It is 9" x 12," on canvas. Again, I am attempting to start with the image and then react to how the landscape influences my mood.