Trepidation hovers over my art-making, until it doesn’t. Then it is supplanted by a quickening of concept and immersive execution, which I cannot claim to control. I like this. Occasionally this strange yet familiar process ends with an artifact that, to me, also seems worthwhile. Other people sometimes feel the same way, but not always. When they do, it may be because they’ve turned it up-side down. Which way is up, anyway?

The work shown here is all linked conceptually in my abstraction of shape and form apparent in images posted on Twin-Cities Craigslist Freestuff.

In high season in Minneapolis/St. Paul, nearly 3000 free items are available at one time, all of them from the wider community in which I live. God only knows how much Freestuff is given away nationally. (If Craigslist knows, they’re not talking.) Sure, lots of stuff is posted just because the current owners are looking for a cheap way to get junk hauled away. But mostly, there’s a lot of generosity out there. On one summer afternoon Freestuff up for grabs included a grandfather clock; a cedar gazebo; a white baby grand piano (“in need of a little love”); a craftsman radial arm saw; a large fish aquarium (and in a separate post, a single Plecostomus fish); a “new batch” of rhubarb roots; squirrel baffles; a Brunswick bowling ball; a Hammond organ (not a B3, alas); and a free “huge iconic chair as seen on highway 8”.

As much as I enjoy reading the posts (“seven single left-handed gloves…I know…how does this happen”, reads a recent lament), it’s the Freestuff images I crave, not because of what they are trying to give away, but because of what I see inside their often haphazard and lovely compositions. That’s the Freestuff I work with in the studio.

Anyone who identifies their own Craigslist Freestuff post in my work can take the painting home. If they want to. For free.