Friends through the years

This week I've been sorting through a series of notebooks documenting my art career, and this postcard was the oldest item in the oldest notebook: my very first exhibit! It was a two-person show with an artist who, almost 20 years later, is still a dear friend.

Painter Carol O'Malia and I met as first-year graduate students at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's College of Visual and Performing Art in 1995. She is a very friendly and outgoing person, so I felt an instant sympatico during the first day of the graduate seminar class we were both taking, when she introduced herself and reached out to shake my hand.

During our second year of grad school, I invited Carol to join me for a two-person show at the university's student gallery, which was then located at 1213 Purchase Street in New Bedford. It was the first time I had ever displayed my artwork in public, and I was so glad she agreed to share the experience with me. Shown here is the postcard from our exhibit. (Hey, remember when the best deal in town was a pack of 500 postcards for $95 from Modern Postcard?! Times have sure changed ... )

Many years have passed since then, and over that time, Carol and I have kept in touch through each other's ups and downs, both personal and professional. She's one of those people who, no matter how much time goes by between meetings, you always feel like it's only been a few minutes rather than a few years when you see each other in person. Coincidentally, we now find ourselves to be teaching colleagues at Framingham State University. And last fall, we showed our work together for the second time, at the Framingham State gallery, nearly 20 years after our first show together at UMass Dartmouth!

Carol, old buddy, here's hoping for another 20 years of painting and friendship together!

Oldies But Goodies Part 6: Jubilee

Here's a painting from 1996, created while I was in graduate school. I titled it "Jubilee," as the big round shapes made me think of cherries, as in the dessert "cherries jubilee." This is a work on canvas made of a combination of acrylic, oil stick, and fabric collage. I created a field of bright red, blue-green and purple shapes and then partially covered them with white. Some of this work is intentionally designed and some involves the preservation of randomly occurring marks, like the red drip near the center of the canvas.

Oldies But Goodies, Part 5: My 20th anniversary with MassArt

This post is a new entry in "Oldies But Goodies," a series highlighting earlier artworks that have proved pivotal to my development as an artist. Other "Oldies" posts can be found here.

This weekend, I've been preparing to give a presentation about my career to a local high school. In compiling chronological images to show during my talk, I came across this artwork, created in 1994. It is acrylic, ink, and watersoluble crayon on paper, and measures approximately 18" x 24".

When I made this piece, I was attending the Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston during an independent course of post-baccalaureate study in which I created a portfolio for graduate school application. As part of my plan, I attended MassArt during the spring, summer and fall semesters of 1994. I had saved up diligently in preparation for this schedule, so that I only had to work part time and could devote most of my time to painting.

During my first semester at MassArt, I attended basic classes along with the undergraduate students, drawing and painting from the figure. Then summertime came, and I spent June, July, and August painting alone in my MassArt studio on a daily basis. Slowly but surely, working in the relative calm that is Boston in summer, realism fell away, and I found myself creating purely abstract works for the first time.

The artwork above is one of the first pieces that came from that intensive summer of painting. It started with a layer of loosely applied blue ink. Then I broke up the open space with blocks of orange acrylic, leaving several openings (I thought of them as "doorways") where the first layer of blue showed through. Finally, I embellished sections of the surface with drawn areas of watersoluble crayon.

This is one of the pieces I used in my graduate school application portfolio. I was ultimately accepted into the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth's College of Visual and Performing Arts, where I earned my Master of Fine Arts Degree in Painting in 1997. I've always maintained a particular fondness for my time at MassArt. Even though I only spent three semesters there, I remember that school as the place where I got my first taste of the level of commitment and single-mindedness that's necessary to becoming a professional artist.

Yesterday I went back to the campus to drop off a painting for the 2014 MassArt Auction, coming up next month. It's been 20 years since I attended there as a student, but the pleasant memories are still fresh in my mind!

Oldies but goodies, part 4 in a series

I've been doing some painting storage inventory this weekend, and this "oldie but goodie" popped up. It's part of a series I made several years ago and, I think because it's so simple and quiet, never attracted much attention or sold. But I adore it; it's one of my favorite paintings that I've ever made.

During fall of 2010, I created a series by extruding lines of white paint onto stretched canvas. Nothing unusual about that, for me, but usually I press the lines flat with a brayer and a sheet of paper, only with this grouping, I didn't. Instead I let the lines dry in the raised way they originally came out of the squeeze bottle. Then when they were dry, I brushed back over them with different colors of paint -- in this case, watered-down black that registered as gray -- until the paint had soaked deep into the canvas fibers and dried, leaving a contrast of surface texture between the lines and the background/negative space.

This series didn't go anywhere; photographs can't do it justice, which I guess is why the consultants I work with didn't respond, and I still have most of them sitting around. But this one is my absolute favorite of the bunch. The medium gray, slightly shiny surface reminded me of when you rub layers of graphite onto paper, hence the title: "Graphite." I am so glad to have reconnected with this piece; I am now going to take it upstairs and hang it in my bedroom!

"Graphite 2," acrylic on canvas, 20 inches square, 2010

Oldies but goodies, part 3 in a series

Detail of "Chorus 1"

This installment of the "Oldies But Goodies" series is devoted to "Chorus 1," an important painting for me in a number of ways: technically, conceptually, and career-wise.

When I made this painting in 1999, I had been experimenting with various combinations of acrylic paint, acrylic gel medium, and spray paint. I discovered a number of interesting effects were possible using this combination. These included spraying directly onto a wet layer of the gel and then brushing certain areas lightly in order to remove some but not all of the color to leave lacy, broken marks.

This painting was made directly on unbleached stretched canvas, which gives it an air of both modernity and freedom. I felt like I was simultaneously emulating Morris Louis (spontaneous application directly onto an untreated surface) and flouting the rules (who says you have to cover every inch of space?). By isolating the painted areas in a sea of raw fiber, I was creating compositional emphasis as well as exploring what for me was previously uncharted territory.

Once the image was complete, built up from lines drawn with spray paint and patches of smeared paint, I felt as though the circles represented a kind of written description of sound. I saw the repeating O's and imagined I could hear a voice singing "oooooooooo." The mixture of circles on the left-hand side of the canvas, in varying sizes and configurations, might represent a kind of harmonizing or musical group effort. Hence the title, "Chorus 1." (There was also an accompanying painting created titled "Chorus 2."

When the painting was finished, I began submitting it for various exhibition opportunities, one of which was the "Ninth Triennial" at the Fuller Museum of Art in Brockton, Massachusetts. This was what turned out to be the last of a series of juried exhibitions for New England-based painters and sculptors at the Fuller, which soon thereafter would change its identity and mandate to become entirely devoted to crafts. But this last hurrah for the fine arts was juried by the venerable Carl Belz, former director of the world-class Rose Art Museum at Brandeis University. I was more than honored to have "Chorus 1" selected for inclusion in the exhibition. I found myself exhibiting alongside 70 of the Boston area's best abstractionists, most of whom already had long and respected careers. And in the gorgeous setting of the Fuller's spacious and light-filled architecture, "Chorus 1" was displayed to its fullest advantage. Also, I was pleased to see my artwork mentioned in the Boston Sunday Herald's review of the show.

The Ninth Triennial remains one of the most rewarding exhibition experiences of my career. And "Chorus 1" remains a major breakthrough painting for me.

"Chorus 1," acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 28" H x 68" W, 1999

Oldies But Goodies, Part 2 in a series

Detail of "Veil"

This is the second installment in an ongoing series in which I revisit older paintings to connect the threads of how I got from there to here.

The artwork below, titled "Veil," was created in 2000. I had been experimenting with using acrylic gel medium in combination with spray paint to create various printmaking effects, and this 28" square work on canvas is part of that series. I was also working with a limited palette at this time, so as to eliminate the distraction of color.


Soon after its completion, this painting was exhibited, along with two other from the series, in "Rhymes and Rhythms," a group show at the Artworks! gallery in New Bedford. There it was seen and purchased by a collector, who subsequently bought another of my paintings from a different venue.

I was pleased with the calm, repetitive nature of this piece. Its lace-like pattern inspired its title, as did the fact that you can still barely see the first layer of larger brown loops in the background.

"Veil," acrylic and spray paint on canvas, 28" square, 2000

Oldies But Goodies, Part 1 in a series

Detail of "Silken Web"

I am adding a new feature to my blog: "Oldies But Goodies." I am now marking my 16th year as a professional artist (1997 being the year I earned my M.F.A. in painting), which means that I have begun to amass a body of work that reflects over a decade of exploration and development. I certainly intend to go on for at least another -- oh, let's say 40 years of art-making. But I thought it might be an interesting blog series to present highlights from the past, that show where I've been.

Below is "Silken Web," made from acrylic paint on fabric on canvas that measures 30" high by 20" wide. It was created in 2007, by squeezing lines of white paint onto a piece of thin polyester (an old curtain lining from Savers) while the fabric was lying on top of a stretched canvas of untreated cotton duck. The double-layered surface made two impressions of the same pattern, which creates a three-dimensional quality.

I am very proud of this painting! It has a soft, hypnotic sense of glowing light that is both simple and complex. It was sold to a Boston condominium soon after it was made and is now on display in one of their public spaces.

"Silken Web," acrylic on fabric on canvas, 30" x 20", 2007

For a complete display of works from each of those 16 years, visit my "painting archive" blog at CarterPaintingArchive.blogspot.com.