"The School for Sailors" Painting

Lured away by the ocean from my home state of Colorado, I currently live In North Truro, MA and maintain a painting studio nearby in Provincetown. I have exhibited paintings and painted furniture in Rhode Island, Provincetown, New York City, Baltimore, San Francisco, Maine, and Arizona. From 1975 through 2022, I was employed by the Tony Award-winning Trinity Repertory Company in Providence, RI, in several positions including scenic painter, props artisan, and muralist, but mainly, beginning in 1980, as graphic designer, during which I produced, among other things, nearly 300 posters.

My paintings are ostensibly about men enjoying hot sand and cool water at the end of Cape Cod, but also about the remarkable confidence we need to have to be naked or nearly-so out-of-doors in public. Ancient heroes were often depicted nude as the highest expression of self-confidence. But we are vulnerable to many things — the judgement of others, missed connections, inclement weather, crashing waves, rocks, crabs, sharks. Those challenges are not always overtly depicted in my paintings, but there are reminders that part of the thrill of the beach lies in its risks. There is more to a day at the beach than just being “a day at the beach.” Each painting is a moment in the Provincetown, MA story about a community of gay men energetically engaging with this wonderful environment.

I create representational art in a lively, painterly style in oils or gouache on masonite panels whose dimensions range from 16 to 42 inches. I have also used egg tempera.