Thomas Hart Benton’s paintings of working men and women in his distinctly American landscape have always sparked an emotional reaction in me. They remind me of childhood summers spent in North Carolina tobacco country, at my maternal grandparents’ hand hewn log cabin on their 40 acre farm outside Winston-Salem. The diverse and urbane culture of [...]

Selling my paintings online has offered exposure to a variety of artists, artisans and designers who are using the web as a similar tool. Two of those acquaintances are interior designers; Caitlin Creer of Salt Lake City, and Victoria Smith of San Francisco. I met Victoria through Etsy and Caitlin had posted about my work [...]

I haven’t gotten into the city yet to see the Whitney Biennial and may have to skip it this time. Much time being spent painting my own work and getting house repairs finalized. What I have seen are interesting takes on the art involved, so I’ll include a few excerpts here. I think my favorite [...]

Gilliam juried my work into an exhibit last spring at Philadelphia’s Woodmere Museum of Art and I love that he says success for an artist is in just ‘doing it’, more than anything else. And that change is a routine part of the job. ”Art is the best position (to have) in any country….it’s the best [...]

I liked David Hockney’s early portraits but his latest landscapes are quite a surprise if you haven’t yet discovered them. They remind me of a modern Matisse who might have used a lot of dioxazine purple to offset his phthalo greens and cadmium oranges. The liveliness of Hockney’s eye and hand are much evident and [...]

Very pleased to see Tom Zarrilli’s Roadside Memorials make it into Emory University’s scholarly journal, ‘Southern Spaces’ this month. The series is called ‘Documentary Expression and the American South’. My interview with Tom here on May 23 was also posted in the links section under recommended resources.    Pepper Cross, Tom Zarrilli.   Excerpted information [...]

Two pop icons died today. One updated Astaire’s (and Kelly’s) moves, followed PT Barnum’s model for showbiz and blazed through the ’70′s and 80′s. The other was known for her hair more than her acting. I listened to part of a newscast about Michael Jackson and while the claim was that he broke the racial [...]

There are many artists in the online shops where I’ve been selling my own paintings, who offer to do commissions. My early background was spent studying and producing portraiture and there was even a stint in the late 1970′s when I traveled to various cities to sketch ‘caricatures’ at sprawling automobile conferences. I couldn’t do [...]