This painting was made on a storm window. It's painted in oils on a storm window an acquaintence of mine traded for it several years back. The work dates from the mid 1980's when I began a long spell of sexual imaging. I was in mid-divorce from my 2nd wife and pissed as much at myself as at her. She was 14 years younger than me and at times it seemed like much more that that time and wisdom wise. The break-up was sort of inevitable given our differences and our different desires. But I was soon packing up at the art school after 17 years of low wages and less than no support from the institution. It was kind of an overdose of art school after spending almost 6 years as a student and having been in an art program in high school I'd been in art school for way too long. So though I didn't agree with the grounds for my non-renewal I didn't call a lawyer I just figured my run was over. After my severence ran out and my unemployment I began living off my art work as best I could.You make more sales when you have too than when you are on the art teacher dole. The first big sale was the Shinder family buying a big painting for the Minneapolis Institute of Arts in 1990-1. Evan Maurer picked the best painting in the litter or at least the painting most appropriate for a museum that was trying to appeal to a broader audience that the rich folks who contributed antique piss pots and junk from trips abroad. So it brought a modest price which took me to my next port of call in Elliot Park. For a while there it seemed as if I was moving quite frequently. As when the sales money ran out it was time to sell smaller things at steep discount. But truth be told over the years the Institute and Walker were acquiring work and though it wasn't a living it kept me afloat albeit in the leaky boat of what next??
I started using oils less because the circumstances of my existence didn't always include drying time or money for fancy turpentine and oil colors. Though I did trade a painting for very good oils from a friend in LA, that was a blessing makes me feel like people out West are more friendly more helpful. The art I made was angry at times and dark I recall asking Peter Boswell from the Walker to see a big solo show downtown and he found it very distressing, sad and dark, sort of self evident in the pictures but sometimes you need an expert to give you the honest readout. I started the portraits in the same time frame and they were supposed to make me some income but instead I saw myself doing another type of art with the same commercial results ie. NO SALE. Oh I sold a few some barter and what all but at first the portraits were just too raw, too intense. Eventually they brought me some income but never very much, I pegged the price on my rent so once in a while the landlady would be pleased. A friend of mine said she'd never been able to pay her bills until she got a regular teaching gig. Thing is though schools paid so little and take up so much time and soul. Besides what do I know? I'm an artist it took me several years to figure out what I coulkd do wirh students that would be most useful. When you are obsessed with your art everything else is in the shade.
Digression your name shall be mine. Anyway the painting on the storm window was meant to be part of a 3 part work concerning St Frank my disguise of the moment, the feckless genius who always finds himself in deeper than he's like to be. What do we do with out misery our horror our failures? Only thing for me was to make them into art.