WILLIAM
I would say that one of the major things that make my paintings identifiably mine is the selection of my subject matter. Like many of my peers, I painted large, abstract oils for many years. Then, with the realization that the world wasn't going to end in an apocalyptic cloud, but more likely would suffer the chance of death through apathy and neglect, I switched back to the art of my formative youth - realism.
I'd also completed commenting on the momentary passions and fashions of my youth and, having been informed by my own life experience, I began my own unique testimony on the role of the very relevant art of painting. Having spent, at that time, over two decades designing motion pictures, based on the emotional requirements of a script, it was natural for me to seek out, for my mature artistic expression, and describe in pigment, those environments that people create for conducting their public lives that are most telling about themselves. I especially react to those places created by people for whom the quality of their environment is important, even in the mundane. These are the subjects that have some meaning to me. Meaning that I hope to convey to the viewer in some way and on some level - not that I'm responsible for how anyone else reacts to my work. I think that my responsibility ends at the point where a reaction, if any, begins. I just trust that if I'm honest in my intent to perceive my subject matter, through my own reaction to it, that reflects some aspect of the human condition, then anyone else's reaction to the work will come from that same pool of recognition and, hopefully, understanding.
People react strongly to my work because of this quest of mine to portray the human condition in universally recognized forms. A collector, of my work, in Hong Kong has especially treasured pictures that I painted of locations around Catalina Island in Southern California. They remind him so much of the first twenty-one years of his life, spent aboard his father's fishing junk. It is summed up better, I believe, by the following two quotes, first by Charles Champlin, host of Champlin on Film on the Bravo cable network, and past Arts Editor of The Los Angeles Times.
"Bill puts form and content together in a lovely way, and in all his pictures that I've seen there is a prevailing kindness, an observers, warm eye, or perhaps it's a warm and sympathetic observer's keen eye."
And by Lisa Dubins, whose Dubins Gallery in Los Angeles handled my work for five years until her retirement eight years ago, who once remarked:
"I could never imagine Bill painting fruit and flowers. He has too much going on in his life."
It is important to mention that all of my paintings - studies and larger studio pieces - are painted in transparent watercolours only. I paint in transparent watercolour, not out of some dogmatic devotion to the medium, but because of the edge it gives me. I liken painting in transparent watercolour to running toward a frozen pond in slick soled leather shoes, then sliding across the surface, praying that one doesn't hit an ice cube embedded in the surface - for there is little or no steering once the voyage commences. That edge provides the tension necessary for me to create.
It has nothing to do with ability, and all to do with competence. Creativity has less to do with talent than it has to do with motivation. The desire to create does not exist on its own without acting upon that desire. Wanting to paint, thinking about painting or mentally planning a painting is meaningless and futile. You must plant yourself in a chair or your feet in front of an easel and do the work - then it will happen. The trait that I hope you may have observed in me is that if you take the time to learn all that you can about that which you love to do, you will develop a confidence that only comes with competence. Security comes with that form of confidence, and through that security you become assured enough to share, and once you can share you will always be learning. From that point on you are your own best teacher.
I suppose one other thing about my work, that is evident upon viewing an overall selection of my paintings, is the richness of the darks that are obtainable with watercolour. I felt a certain frustration in all the years I painted with oil paints. The hard reflective surface formed by the dried paint emulsion seemed to defeat the intensity of my deepest blacks and sepias. I find that the matte surface of the cold pressed paper that I favor makes for some very rich dark passages that I eagerly include in my paintings.
I think that most of my paintings contain at least one, but usually a combination of the subjects usually thought of in connection with figurative art; skies, water trees still lifes, buildings, flower studies and even portraiture. If any or all of the above are important for the conveyance of the emotional content I deem important to communicate in any given painting, I take it on. I've never considered any subject too difficult.
most vagabonds I knowed
don't ever want to find the culprit
that remains the object of their long relentless quest
the obsession's in the chasing
and not the apprehending
the pursuit you see and never the arrest
- tom waits -
"foreign affair"