Me and Shelley Sparks, who won one of my small paintings in a drawing at the evening ARTconnectsLA presentation.

The ARTconnectsLA presentations at SPARC Gallery last month were a big success, and we were overwhelmed by the enthusiastic response. Not only did more people show up than we were expecting, but people are ready to get involved now! We're working on placing artwork at two nonprofit agecnies in Santa Monica, and at the same time working on our incorporation and nonprofit status filing. So please be patient while we build the groundwork for our organization. In the meantime, you can see pictures from the presentations on Flickr, you can become a fan on Facebook, and you can follow us on Twitter. Thank you to everyone who attended the two presentations! It was exciting to see all of you there.

Best wishes,

I'm working on a new series of paintings with the working title "Haz Mat," short for hazardous materials. In previous work I used the "Oops!" house paints from Home Depot, until I found something even better.

The city I live in has a Household Hazardous Waste Facility for residents to dispose of hazardous materials, such as latex house paint. The facility then makes the paint available for free to people like me, and I am actually doing the city a favor by taking it off of their hands! If I don't take the paint and use it in my paintings, the city has to dispose of it as hazardous waste.

With the "Haz Mat" paintings, I layer the paint and pull it across a textured surface with a scraper. The texture is created with molding paste or crackle paste, and the scraper catches on the ridges creating wonderful patterns.

Windswept
24 x 30 inches
acrylic latex on canvas  

Between the Lines
24 x 24 inches
acrylic latex on canvas   

Sky Blue
24 x 24 inches
acrylic latex on canvas   

Sea
36 x 48 inches
acrylic latex on canvas