Open Letter

An Open Letter to all of you who have asked & to give thanks ---

As part and parcel of a recent article with "Down East Magazine" as well as one on the front page of the Rockland "Free Press", I've had a lot of people asking me to post some of my writings on the web site, and many of you have also asked me about how my newest painting, "Self portrait Being a Teen-age Neil Diamond Rockin' the Shack and Port Clyde Roads" is going. Answer -- I'm really getting into it. Diggin' in. Gettin' in touch with my "inner Neil", so to speak. I've even picked up my guitar again. I wouldn't put it past me that maybe I'll ruffle some of the neighbors fur with a few hot licks this summer -- ha!!

So, listen, I got to thinking that maybe I'll get around to creating a little off-shoot link-space here, or maybe even a blog, and show you all how it is a painting that I do sort of sends out a tap-root, takes consciousness & comes into being. Trust me, it's a pretty unorthodox and funky process. But that's o.k., it's mine, and I don't particularly know how to do it any other way than how I do it. So be it.

Of course, I had very much hoped to have the "Neil - n - me" painting done for the Outsider Art Fair, but it didn't pan out, (with an estimated 80 or so hours left to go on it) and since I'm not in the least inclined to sign a painting until the painting "asks" me to -- for lack of a better way to put it, well, anyway, needless to say, it stayed put here in Maine. Then there's the matter of the frame, which I envision as a whole other she-bang of a process, what with broken records embedded in the frame, maybe some vintage 8 track cassette tapes thrown in and so on . . .so, it's a "distillation", and so with that in mind, what I'm hoping to do is have the little blog or link or whatever, take us right along with the creative process, right from the beginning sketch, to various states along the way of how the painting is coming along.

This present little effort writing here is my "start" toward that end, at any rate.

I'll also put my notes, notions, and ideas from along the way as I'm going, and in the end we'll see what gets left in and what gets left out of the creative dialog. In the meantime, I thank you all kindly for asking about it and I've been really pleased with the response to the articles in both "Down East Magazine" and the "Free Press", and by the way, the "Self portrait Being a Teen-age Neil Diamond Rockin' the Shack and Port Clyde Roads" painting has generated a lot of positive interest in ways I've never quite experienced, or expected. Let's put it this way. . .I never quite conceived of myself as a "portrait artist". . .yet it seems I've arrived there. . .by ummmmm.....let's say: default. But life is sweeter that way, when we least expect something -- don't you think?? Ok , got to run. Remember ---"The best is yet to come". So, if I didn't see you at my one man show -- (and BY THE WAY, many, many thanks to you "from here" who trekked on down and supported me there, and at the Outsider Art Fair), then I'll see you in Maine come February, 2007.

Until then --

Peace,
C. W. O.