"Casey"

     If it has anything to do with baseball, I’ll be interested in it.  While baseball may not be my first love (art is my first love), it runs a close second, along with antiques and especially folk art.  When I can find a combination of all of these elements in one subject, it is icing on the cake. 

     I bought this baseball player whirligig nearly twenty-five years ago and it has taken me that long to get around to painting him.  In the early part of my career I really didn’t put a whole lot of humor in my work; I tried to figure out what the art public wanted and there is certainly no real answer to that question, so I went back to my training in writing, where one of the first rules is “Write about what you know.”  Once I figured out that this rule applied to painting as well I started using my own “stuff” in my work.  It might have been decoys, books, guns, etc., but whatever I collected sooner or later ended up in paintings.  Some just took longer to get there than others, but these are generally my most successful pieces.

      I have always been lucky in that I was able to paint what I liked and sell those paintings. Recently I have had the good fortune to be represented by a couple of fine galleries that do not dictate what to paint, as a lot of galleries will.  As a result I have taken a look at my collected “stuff” and found new inspiration and subject matter. 

     “Casey” as we call him, has always occupied a prime place in our living room (recently moved to a higher and more secure spot due to the arrival of a new Lab puppy) and after I finished the painting I couldn’t believe I had waited so long to paint him.

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