Saint Carl Sagan

This next painting series I am amidst is one I think has been a long time coming.

I tend to think that what ever it is floating around in the artists head, be that a recent read book, movie watched, behaviors noticed, there is something of an impression made in your brain. Not saying that the same thing doesn't happen in the non-artist head, just that for an artist it is very important. The reason for that is because an artist will eventually use his or her past impressions to express a current perspective. When drawing from the pool of inspiration one can only access what already exists so spending your life engaged in the things you would like to eventually talk about is a good idea. Maybe simpler put, you are what you eat, likewise you paint what's in your brain.

Relating this back to my new paintings, I have been an amateur science fiction nerd and overall science enthusiast for some time now and I think it's finally found a way to make an appearance in my work. I love Philip K. Dick, I've read over a dozen of his books, seen his movies (including a special screening of A Scanner Darkly where his daughter and the artistic director of the film where present for Q and A!!). My favorite program on NPR is the Science Friday edition of Talk of the Nation where amazing scientist radio nerd Ira Flatow discusses all the hot science issues of the week. I do not believe in god even though my mother is extremely religious (studying buddhist monk), or anything close to an organized religion which leaves me looking to science for many of my unfulfilled questions. And still I am in a place of wonder and amazement with the world I live in, and Carl Sagan is one of those influences that can really make me excited about life, it's patterns, it's complex yet simple and sensible patterns.

This series I will explore my admirations for the epic and sensible science figures and make worlds that question reality like the best science fiction tends to. I end this with a quote from the late great Saint Carl Sagan:

The Cosmos is all that is or ever was or ever will be. Our feeblest contemplations of the Cosmos stir us — there is a tingling in the spine, a catch in the voice, a faint sensation of a distant memory, as if we were falling from a great height. We know we are approaching the greatest of mysteries.