After owning and operating an artists’ paint manufacturing company for 20 years, I earned my mastery of factory arts and my expert knowledge about the chemical composition and working properties of the pigments and binders used to make traditional art media since the Renaissance. 

I have often consulted with studio painters to customize their art materials. I have talked with art students about the basics of contemporary color science so they know why they can’t find digital colors in the paint box.

When I retired, I realized I had spent too much time talking about the history of art making and too little time exploring it. I set off to see the real deal, the bona fide works of art made by master artists. I finally had enough time to look at art works until I figured out how they were made. 

I roamed through American and European museums looking at what’s been left behind and wondering why. I traveled to ancient places around the Mediterranean, to Anatolia and Egypt to see landscapes where art making traditions originated more than 10,000 years ago.

My conceptual cabinet of curiosities started to fill up with details, trivia and unusual ideas about hundreds of ways to make art works. I took what I had accumulated from my travels to fuel my contemplation when I went back to studio during the recent pandemic. Fully stocked with five media, I experimented with various binders on marble, plaster, wood and metal. I mixed ancient recipes and concocted a new color media for a friend who could tolerate no solvent or dust.

Then I started writing my book, PLASTERED: Gesso’s Storied History. A friend asked me what I was going to do with all the leftover stories.

Thanks to Nicole Straus for suggesting a website and Chris Sullivan, web designer, for making this happen.

I will continually post a few new features and hope you enjoy them.

Here are a few of my paintings from my recent show inspired by Botticelli.