Cotton rag paper

Plant, flower, lichen, mushroom inks

6" x 8"

Jason is a friend I travel with; that says it all. We met at KIOSK in 2008, talking and immediately laughing, we always laugh together. He was a shopper with much to say about objects and I was a seller with much to say about objects and we hit it off. Soon, he was showing of a part of his plastic bag collection at KIOSK. (Later, he made a book of them which I hope will be produced.) He is completely himself and he has a wonderful eye. Beyond objects he also is an artist, with a practice I envy. When he comes to visit us in France he goes into the studio and just works and works. We meet for meals and the occasional outing, most particularly to vide greniers. He works, while I'm procrastinating trying to work, and every day he comes with something new. It's friends like this we all can use. He naturally denies he spends too much time in the studio and it's true sometimes he does cook. Life's desires should always take precedence and he shows me how. Through him I have come to understand better, and without guilt, that the life of a sincere artist is equal hard work with the intense, burning, constant, completely never-ending desire to create.

Getting him to show his work is not always so easy. I know Jason's abstracts but I only recently discovered he's been steadily painting sheep. The relationship began a few years ago when he went on his annual residency to Norway with paper in hand and an aim to only work with materials and colors produced from plants on the island. He arrived to find 42 sheep in residence eating the plants into oblivion. In sharing the vegetation with the animals he found a bond and a connection was built. The connection turned into portraits; he painted sheep in the fields; he paints them in Red Hook from photos, his relationship with sheep continues to this day. He says their eyes penetrate your soul and that the sheep he paints walk off the pages. It is a bond of silent and intense exchange and the result, a product of everything an artist puts into their work. There is a well in them and it is clear.

INSTRUCTIONS