Good Speech
2024-2026
The work featured in the “Good Speech” series provides a platform for healing, understanding, and appreciating positive communication. However, the paintings are not intended to be didactic, but rather to emerge from the “ether” of life…. For instance, several paintings invite the viewer to discover awe in an organic way. Quoting Dacher Keltner in his 2023 book titled Awe: “Awe integrates us into the systems of life…. In awe we understand we are part of the many things that are much larger than the self.”
Keltner also emphasizes the need for positive speech and quotes Toni Morrison referring to the fact that our culture needs to consider: “…allowing goodness its own speech….” This latter statement so resonated with me that I began making colorful compositions titled: “Awe,” “Hope,” “Joy,” and “See.”
Since December of 2023, I have been “lifting” letters from the page and treating them as forms with an organic agency or source. Other paintings expand the narrative and feature words that stack, tumble, and tease the eye. The words could appear as images that echo the pictographic origins of letters or stand on their own as beautiful graphic expressions.
Thus, the “Good Speech” paintings feature words that embrace a complex pictorial power. The paintings are made with charcoal, oil, acrylic, graphite, collage, color pencil, marker and ink.
Ultimately, the idea is to engage viewers through thought-provoking works that motivate “good speech” and promote understanding and dialogue. It is my hope that viewers will walk away with feelings of inspiration for a better future for all of us.
