Some of My Paintings During a Pandemic

For me, primarily an abstract painter, painting is an exercise in discovery. Each painting is an experiment. I never know what the painting will look like until it's finished.

The painting arises out of uncertainty. It's sometimes a chaotic process. At least, it feels that way. Different considerations constantly reassert themselves during the painting process: color, direction of motion, cohesion, shapes, among other things.

How do I know when an abstract painting is finished? "It just feels right" is about all I can say. The color combinations, the movements inside the painting, the various shapes, the overall impression, work for me. It's asymmetrically balanced. There's nothing else I can do to that painting. Always the final consideration for me is, 'Would I like that painting hanging on my wall?' If 'yes', then it's finished.

Here are some of my latest paintings.

"Depths of Memory"

"Welcome To My World"

"Thunder Dance"

"Composition 1"

I'm experimenting a lot these days, trying different things. Some paintings work, some don't. It's always an enjoyable process. 'Welcome to My World' was actually painted a couple of years ago, but I want to work in that mode more this year. 'Composition 1' and 'Depths of Memory' are very recent, in the past week or two. I'm looking forward to a lot of experimentation this year.

2020 was a stressful year for me, as it was for a lot of people. Covid-19 changed my life in many ways. I suspect it will stay the way it is now for months to come, maybe longer. But, through it all, we have to keep living and doing what we love as much as possible. I hope you are doing the things you like to do despite the obstacles.

For Many of Us Writers, The Internet Has Set Us Free

The difficulty of getting published today by the big publishers is real for the writer who is more of a mid-list writer, like myself. The prevailing philosophy seems to be that, if they don't think it will be a best seller or earn x-amount of money, the big publishers won't publish it, even if it is well-written. And literary agents have to find novels that they think will meet the big publishers' criteria. And writers have to meet that criteria in their work or forget about being published. Publishing has become a bottom-line business.

What's the majority of us to do (because the majority of us will not write best-sellers)? Has the internet and the self-publishing revolution given us a chance? I think about the USSR and the downfall of the iron curtain. I'm sure the internet and public opinion had something to do with that. What about Tunisia and Egypt? It's pretty well agreed that the revolutions there would not have happened without the internet and Facebook. Is self-publishing on the internet a writer's revolution? I think it is.

I believe the internet has set us free.

We can write any way we want, anything we want. We can experiment. We can follow our dreams.  And we can get published. However, besides our primary goal of writing fiction and non-fiction, the self-published writer should organize his own team of editors and proofreaders and cover artists, etc., and become an internet-marketing expert. It's a huge undertaking for the writer, demanding a significant amount of time and effort. But it will work. It's being done.

The internet has set us free..