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On January 29, 2010, our good friend Shannon Johnston was installed as the 13th Bishop of the Episcopal Diocese of Virginia. The service occurred at St. Paul's in Richmond, a beautiful and historic church next door to the state capital. My wife Crystal played the organ for the service, and she needed to be there very early which is why I was able to take several photos of the historic church just as the the winter sun was coming up. 

Soon thereafter, I painted the "recently risen sun making the church building glow" as a full sheet watercolor.

This painting hung in our den for 15 years. We've always really liked it, and it gained additional significance a couple of years ago when Crystal began to work at St. Paul's as Music Associate. The painting no longer hangs in our den. The St. Paul's choir has plans to travel to England in 2026 to sing at Lincoln Cathedral and we donated the painting to a silent auction conducted as part of a fundraiser for the trip. It did very well, so that's nice. I had a pleasant painting of a waterfall in my studio which now hangs in the den where St. Paul's used to so at least the wall isn't now bare. But giving it up for auction did hurt a bit, sentimentality-wise.

I have always said that no painting of mine is ever not "available" under the right conditions (such as an offer of a buttload of money, for example). My glib pronouncement is based on the concept of "well, I can always paint another one." This thought should be tempered by the realization that no two paintings I have ever done of the same thing have ever turned out looking even remotely similar. With paintings, every single one is irreplaceable in the sense that I can never reproduce what I've done before. In this case, I especially had no desire to attempt to duplicate something I had painted a decade and a half ago.

Notwithstanding, I still remember how pretty the church was in the early morning winter light, and I wanted to paint it again but as its own thing. So, this would be in oil instead of watercolor, and it would zero in more on the church itself. I also used this as opportunity to try something I've never done before; specifically, underpainting. This means an initial layer of paint applied to the canvas to serve as a base for the actual paint later used to create the image. The color should be neutral and thereby not distractive if it peeks through into the new painting. The theory is that this new base color can be optically mingled with the actual painting colors without risk of the colors turning into mud. I'm sure art schools spend entire semesters on theory and variations, and artists spend entire lifetimes to learn mastery of the concept. To me, it was something new to try. Let's walk through the stages. 

After laying out the drawing I painted the entire canvas with watered down acrylic brown sienna. I used acryllic (a) so it would dry quickly, and (b) because I just happened to have some lying around. I needed to touch up the drawing before moving on.

My next step was a complete rule breaker. In oil painting, the theory is you work from dark to light because the dark paints go on thinly and the light paints need to be thicker and opaque if possible. I ignored this, instead following my mentor Christphora Robeers' oft stated instruction to think hard about the placement of your darkest darks and lightest lights. I believe she always meant this to be a "while you are painting" mantra rather than a "do it first" directive, but the latter is what I felt called to do here. Growth as an artist, I believe, can only happen when you are willing to step outside any self-imposed boundaries. You may get worse before you get better, but it's worth the risk. 

During the next painting session I focused on the church building itself. As you can see, I try to be a general feel person as opposed to a capture every detail one. 

In the penultimate painting session I tweaked the building and added the sky. As I recall, that very early January morning sky was the very palest shades of pink into lavender. It was not as intense as the radioactive fallout hue I went with here. However, my feeling always has always been that if I had wanted a photograph I would have printed the one I worked from. I do think that the underpainting scores a point or two in terms of general overall warmth.

The final stage of any painting is to not look at it for a while, and then return and just glare at it like the world's crankiest olympic figure skating judge to find every little thing about it that stinks. Then fix what you can, decide to live with what you can't fix, and, finally, abandon the whole thing for good. Later on, if you wish, you can write an entry on your website's blog about it.  I have completed every one of these stages. Peace. 

The past month has not been politics as normal. I’ve got no problem with addressing waste in government, but it should be done right. The haphazard and abhorrent treatment of dedicated and talented and valuable federal employees by Elon Musk has been disgraceful. I am perfectly aware that international relations require grace and toughness in equal measure. The president’s and vice president's attempted Oval Office beatdown of Volodymyr Zelensky was not toughness. It was immaturity so far beyond outrageous there are not strong enough adjectives to express its horridness. I believe in equity and civil rights but can only conclude that the current president obviously does not because his malice-ridden executive penstrokes have nailed a door solidly shut on all people who are not Caucasian and straight. Since January 20 executive policy has been administered by bazooka, instantaneously blowing decades of progress into atoms while half of congress looks up from their descent to Mordor only long enough to cheer. This is not the America I signed up for.

The damage done in barely more than a month in office will likely take years to recover from and some of it is already probably beyond repair. There is no doubt that the actions of these bullies will result in illness, poverty, terror, death of dreams, and just plain death for untold tens of thousands or more persons they do not care about. It’s a hell of a thing. Impossible to stomach.

The bullying of Zelensky is the foulest and least mature political act I have ever witnessed. I fear February 28, 2025, will go down in history as the moment when the United States fell off its self-proclaimed pedestal as the leader of the free world. Not just fell, actually, it blew the pedestal into smithereens and then flushed the smithereens into a cesspool and lit them on fire. Between this and the anti-immigration flimflam, this country has lost all standing it ever had as a beacon. Might as well send the statue back to France.

The president is acting like the slumlord of a shithole country (his words, remember). It is only natural therefore that people across the globe will perceive his domain to be a shithole. I LIKE this country, and now I and hundreds of millions of my fellow Americans have been painted to be what most of us certainly are not. 

The old solace of “Well, I didn’t vote for him” doesn’t even begin to cover it. The current president and his gutless sycophants on Capitol Hill are so far beyond any established boundaries that the words “United States” have lost meaning. Since renaming geography is now a thing, we might as well call this nation the Disheveled States of Shithole. And don’t you dare call me disrespectful for writing such a thing. I didn’t dump thousands of hard-working federal workers (who DO make America great, by the way) in the trash. I didn’t berate a respected and amazing world leader of a country at war the way a wife-beater treats his spouse. I don’t dismiss people trying to escape poverty and cruelty as just a bunch of rapists and killers. I don’t act like a mob leader just because I can. I don’t treat my allies as enemies.

I do not think this county is a shithole, and I resent the current incumbent for doing so much to portray it that way to the rest of the world. I feel  venom for the senators and representatives and governors who think it’s just peachy that he does so. Is it meaningless to them that their constituents are being fired by the thousands without cause and/or financially devastated by their so-called leader’s insane actions and policies? Or that this country is becoming an international laughingstock? I am begging them to stop, think, and listen. They control one third of federal governmental power; why are they so resistant to using it?

This is a strange place for such a message, I know. This is my paintings website, and it’s usually a vitriol-free zone. I have definitely gone a different route with this particular blog entry. All I can tell you is that it’s hard to discuss why I painted such and such a painting when every day my country and its position in the world are being denigrated by a president who acts like a diseased body part and a political party so obviously either in thrall of or just plain afraid of him.

The painting? Part of the Grand Canyon. Some things remain worthy of celebration.

p.s. I once had a boss whose mantra was “Anybody can complain. If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.” I don’t think my taking the time to write these thoughts is just complaining. The solution is for Congress to reclaim its role as a branch of government and establish some guiderails around all this madness. Sure, I’m writing this in a hobby blog with fewer than a hundred regular readers. But my contribution to trying to find a solution is that I am sending a copy to my congressional representative and both senators and I urge you to write your representative and senators as well. Please do so even if you totally disagree with everything I've written. It's the way the country is supposed to work.