BeardArt

Kind of like an extended greatest hits box-set...

Or a road trip up the entire coast of California...

But with print options.

(swipe or click left or right to make your way up or down the coast, they're in geographical order!)

BeardArt updated their info in the about section.

Trial by Fire II
15" x 15"
Now on aidcurrent.com

Painted live(streamed) with Brother Yusef on Saturday, April 25th, 2020.
(but only for one song before the feed failed from technical issues)

The failed feed didn't stop the art though. I was able to stream his show as long as I wasn't streaming back out, so I spent the rest of the night enjoying Brother Yusef’s high-energy one-man assault on a future without music. It was a noble effort and by the end of the night this painting was the result.

Continuing on my current path facing our times with my art I am still consumed by visions of fire- we're all watching this world with so many lives, so many livelihoods, so many dreams burning to the ground. I only hope and pray that just like a forest needs a good fire now and then to stay healthy, perhaps this will be the fire we need. My heart goes out to all who are hurting and feeling loss- everything about this hurts. Deeply.

But the element of fire, the burning sun, is the source of physical light and warmth that makes earthly life possible. It's an element that in some ways defines our humanity as well. Our passion to create will never be put out. For folks like Brother Yusef, his music burns brightly. Others burn with art, or poetry, or dance, or any number of these creative things- unessential all of them. We can’t eat them. They don’t protect us danger or disease or death. Some of them can’t even be taxed. And yet these are things we can't live without- and even if we did we could hardly call it life at all.

This one is up for auction on AidCurrent.com right now.

Sales from these Lockdown Live Sessions will be split 50/50 between artists and musicians. A way for me to give back to the music-makers out there. From one non-essential to another. Love to all.

Bidding closes at 9pm tonight @ aidcurrent.com
Spread the word.
Every bit helps.

Trial by Fire
24x24
Painted live(streamed) with Justin Fox

This was my first live art/live music/live stream collaboration from last Sunday. It just went up for auction on AidCurrent.com today.

Sales from these Lockdown Live Sessions will be split 50/50 between artists and musicians. A way for me to give back to the music-makers out there. From one non-essential to another. Love to all.

Bidding closes at 9pm tonight. Bid at aidcurrent.com or in the comments below. We can sort it out. Spread the word. Every bit helps. Looking forward to more of these...

--

As we watch the world burn around us, many of us are waking to the reality that we are truly non-essential. As artists, we’ve always known this. You can’t eat paintings. We’ll continue to forge ahead on the fringes while everyone else sorts out the falling chips. Some of us won’t make it. We chose to carve our own paths in life away from the safety of “real jobs” so we’ll get what we deserve in the end. I can accept this. But buried within our need for survival, our need to sell art, there is a pressure to take our art and provide what many people want right now. Diversion. Escape. Idyllic scenes of better worlds and better times.

I don’t think anything sums up my feeling about this better than this passage from the book of Psalms:

By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down and wept, when we remembered Zion.
Upon the willows in the midst of it we hung our harps.
For there our captors demanded of us songs, and our tormentors mirth, saying,
“Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”
But how can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

There will be a time and place to paint better times and better places, but my heart is not there right now- too many people are hurting too deeply, and my own heart is too heavy. So for the moment, I have chosen instead to paint our world on fire. To meet the flames face to face. To accept them. To find beauty even in this tragedy. Without a forest fire, there can be no forest- the mighty sequoia needs fire to release its seeds and clear the ground for its young. Those three seeds in this painting might be my own three children preparing to take root in a world changed forever.

This was my first live art/live music/live stream collaboration from last Sunday. It just went up for auction on AidCurrent.com today.

Sales from these Lockdown Live Sessions will be split 50/50 between artists and musicians. A way for me to give back to the music-makers out there. From one non-essential to another. Love to all.

Bidding closes at 9pm tonight. Bid at aidcurrent.com or in the comments below. We can sort it out. Spread the word. Every bit helps. Looking forward to more of these...