Why Are the Guy’s Fingers
Webbed?
In the early years of my artistic quest I met two like minded travelers. We were taking those
uncertain and tentative steps toward an undefined dream. We knew we wanted to make a life of sorts creating
art. Not just any art, but the kind of
art that would satisfy our deeply rooted needs to express ourselves. We didn’t want to illustrate someone else’s
ideas, we wanted to create our own world through our own images and words, and yes,
even our music. We explored different
materials, techniques and methods. We
explored museums, novels philosophies and love.
Love was always a part of the journey.
There were friends, women, and our families, yes, both births and loss,
different forms of love and different forms of expression. We became tied
together in a friendship that has lasted since 1982. We have fought and inspired each other, asked
questions of each other that pushed us deeper into our individual searches, and
I believe I for one would be in a different place had this friendship not
existed.
David Aguiar and Jim Charette were 18 and 20 years old when
I met them. I was just 21 years old.
David is intellectual in his questioning and exploration.
Jim follows the dictates of his heart. Exploring the concepts of order out of chaos,
often diving into his own angers and fears to find the muse he aims to
appease. That’s not to say his work is simply angry or dark, sometimes it is, but is just as often hilarious and sarcastic. His bold colors are sometimes slashed, sprayed, sometimes splashed and even allowed to drip and run. He paints over and outlines shapes, pushing and
pulling those shapes and contours into focus and eventually allowing a narrative to
form and become defined as he scrapes his knives, pulls his brushes, and
empties the brown bottle or coffee mug at his side. He
will swear, holler and stride across the studio to his digital keyboard and
compose spontaneously, while he records his improvisations and contemplates his next
brushstroke.
David questions. He
first asked me “Why are the guy’s fingers webbed?” back in 1983. It’s a question that inspires me with every
painting and every tale. He said a
creature would need to evolve webbing for a solid reason. That reason in turn would affect other
attributes, like clear eyelids or even gills behind the neck. He would question the clothing, vehicles, and
decision making of any character he developed.
Because of the questioning aspects of his process, he developed a method
of creation that lends itself to the modern digital world. Changes are quicker, cleaner and more effective
with the click of a mouse or keyboard function.
He starts with a hand drawn image.
Basic and fundamental in its simplicity.
Graphite on paper, retraced with marker on trace, he develops an image
to be scanned and manipulated in multiple digital programs and printed on fine
paper, creating artwork that expresses his world in an almost scientific
manner.
I have spent thirty years, so far, bouncing between these two wildly
creative minds, being influenced and questioned from two vastly different
directions. My own muse demands I start
from an emotional response to something I observe and record in some
manner. After the first layer of color
has been added, in ways that Jim would respond to, I question and correct in a
manner that David would. Their opposing questions
have a way of defining my own methods in a way that I have found comforting and
rewarding. My colors work as they do
because of the questions. The shapes are
formed because I feel the balance and emotion they inspire. I look at my work and can see the influence
of my two friends as though they are in the studio beside me every day. They guide my hand, my choices and even on
some days my responses. Thirty years of
trust, friendship, and motivation. What
more could an artist ask of from two guys he met while checking out the cute
girls on the other side of the open studio that was our classroom. And the parties? Well that’s a story for another time, maybe.
A look at some work.....
"At the Gates of Big Man Town" by Jim Charette
"Yellow Woods" by C.R. Chuck Boucher oil on canvas
No comments:
Post a Comment