Q.: Was 2022 a good year for you?
A.: Yes, very good, in fact.
Q.: What were some of the highlights in your art career?
Aside from continuing to sell work through PoetsArtists and 33 Contemporary Gallery in Chicago, I grew and expanded as an artist, becoming much more comfortable incorporating metaphor and symbolism in my portraiture. This is particularly evident in my most meaningful series of paintings to date — “Saints Like Us,” contemporary portraits of saints, martyrs and other religious figures, depicted as if they had suddenly shown up in the 21st century, complete with many of the trappings of our time, from cellphones and earbuds to tattoos and the clothing of our age. The series, which I started in March and finished in early December, has fortunately been well received, being chosen for its own viewing room on Artsy. One portrait, of Saint Vitus, the patron saint of dancers, was even featured in American Art Collector as part of an article about the online PoetsArtists show “Exertion.”
Q.: Were you included in any shows?
A.: Several other paintings of mine were included in a variety of other PoetsArtists publications and shows, from the “Pandemic” show in Dublin to the “Summer 2022 Pop Up Show” at 33 Contemporary in Chicago. My painting for the summer show — a large beach scene featuring children digging in the sand at the charming Civic Beach at Point Lookout, a hamlet in the town of Hempstead on Long Island, just outside New York City — was chosen for the cover of the show’s catalog. Another painting, a portrait of Ukrainian First Lady Olena Zelenska, was included in an exhibition to raise funds for Ukraine at the William Ris Gallery in Jamesport, N.Y. Several paintings of mine were selected this year to go to the moon in digital form in 2023 as part of the Peregrine Collection payload aboard the Peregrine Lunar Lander. And I completed a large group portrait commission of 14 members of one family — that’s correct, 14 — that was well received. Yes, 2022 has been a good year in my art career, indeed.
Q.: What were some of the pitfalls?
A.: Dealing with health issues is nothing new for me, having had many heart and spine procedures and surgeries over the years. But 2022 presented a unique challenge, first dealing with severe Covid-19 and then unexpected but serious ramifications from what was eventually diagnosed as post-Covid-19 syndrome, which attacks the most vulnerable parts of the patient. In my case, those areas are the spine, the heart and, since I am also asthmatic, the lungs. I am now being treated with medication and physical therapy and am finally back to painting again, but for an extended time everything was put on hold, including my saints series, right when I was about to finish it, as my doctors and I faced quite a challenge getting me to stand and walk again without excruciating pain, my heart to stop beating out of my chest and my lungs to function normally again. I am grateful to the doctors, nurses, therapists, family and friends, including our own Didi Menendez, who counseled me to take care of myself and not worry about the art until I was better. Thank you, Didi! I now am gratefully much better. So it’s onward and upward for 2023.
Q.: What are you looking forward to in 2023?
A.: In 2023, I am simply looking forward to painting what I like and what holds meaning for me. In truth, I have always felt this way, to a degree, even when painting was my secondary career while I was knee-deep in my primary work as a newspaper reporter and editor for decades until retiring from that in 2017 and focusing on my art. But my recent health scare, coupled with the joy I’ve derived from my “Saints Like Us” series, has really helped me focus on storytelling through art and metaphor in a way I hadn’t really done in the past. I now see the saints series as a springboard. In fact, while I was finishing it — with a large portrait of Saint Joan of Arc, the series’ capstone — I became somewhat sad to be approaching the end. Not that I won’t ever paint a saint again, but a chapter I enjoyed was suddenly ending. Then that sadness was replaced with a sudden excitement to explore the Greeks and Romans. Whether this turns into a full-fledged series on the order of the saints remains to be seen, but already I have painted a contemporary spin on Agamemnon, the great mythic Greek king, and I am now developing all sorts of ideas for more portraits in this vein. So, 2023 holds much promise.