I Often Dream of Trains Painting

This painting was originally created in 1999 when I was a teenager and just beginning to experiment with painting. It was created with charcoal and acrylic paint and ink on watercolor paper and mounted on lightweight matte board. I hung it in my first show in Berkeley CA., Ten other pieces in the series sold to a collector and this piece remained with a few dozen more of my first works, for twenty years, hidden away in a portfolio case, untouched. In 2019, I reworked it along with its sister paintings harnessing the naive and experimental qualities of its origins and enhancing it with more depth, richer colors and definition. Once again the piece sat, not quite finished, until 2023 bringing it up to this state. Its final revision has it mounted with dense layers of acrylic gel, onto a stretched canvas. I brought the edges of the first painting out to meet the edges of another painting underneath it, incorporating the original composition onto the canvas that supports the original. This piece is very heavy, and has a textured surface that reveals the passing of time and transformation of the work. Edges are painted black. Signed, hardware installed, ready to hang.