Poplar, Oak, and Sturgeon Dreaming

Tulip Poplar, Montrose Park (20" X 16", oil on canvas)


Sun and Oak (60" X 40", oil on linen)


Sturgeon Dreams Under Key Bridge (36" X 48", oil on canvas)

Long Railroad Bridge

Long Railroad Bridge (30" X 40", oil on linen)

I have painted this bridge a number of times from the Hains Point side. This I painted from a photo I took from the Virginia side, by the Yellow Line bridge, looking toward Hains Point. I think it is successful, but I'd like to do what Van Gogh did with his repetitions. I'd like to make a copy of this. I think it will flow and accentuate the pleasing properties in a way that I failed to achieve in the painstaking process of working from a photo. But for now, I am eager to make a success of this 36" X 48" painting that is underway. It will be called something like Sturgeon Dreams Under Key Bridge. It will accompany Shad Dreams Under the Q Street Bridge at my January solo show at the Foundry. Mark your calendars for the Friday, January 3rd "First Friday" opening, please!

An essay from nearly seven years ago that has refreshed my drive to paint

On Painting

Painting is a visual, mental, and spiritual exercise. It is an athletic/technical discipline, a dance of the eye, the mind, the palette, and the hand. The canvas is the stage and the landscape/subject form the set/cast. The paint is the words and motions and thoughts of the painter/actor.

Painting is a voyage through reality to the core of being, a reflection of the artist’s internal life and his power to process the external. Painting is a creative voyage, an extended and focused ride on the interface between the painter’s internal organism and the universe of time-space, matter and light. All are in constant flux, presenting the paradoxical challenge of generating a fixed, static record of the voyage onto a given canvas, a canvas that itself changes very little over the course of a lifetime, though its appearance changes according to the light and according to the personalities of different viewers. Even the shifting moods and ongoing maturation of a particular viewer change the canvas’ appearance.

[The essay goes on and on but is pretty good. I've tagged it onto my artist's statement on my website: www.edwardbearmiller.com]

Thanks to Bob Stark for excavating and sharing this with me this morning!