Jay Raymond Art

I'm no Luddite, but until now I resisted getting one of those fancy phones with all of the extra features such as a QWERTY keyboard and a camera. I've been perfectly happy with a basic cell phone, but my service provider recently discontinued it's mobile offering, and so I was forced into looking for a new phone and a new company. I had no idea what I was missing. The phone that landed in my hands turned out to be Apple's iPhone. What an incredible tool! It's not simply a phone. I've loaded several applications that provide functionality ranging from managing my bank account to navigating via voice enabled GPS. It has turned out to be an inexpensive replacement for various dedicated devices through the addition of affordable applications downloaded from iTunes. Included in the phone is a lens for still photography and video. I know most phones now have a built in camera so that people have the ability to capture images at any time, but I didn't realize ...

Frank Stella is one of my favorite living masters. It's interesting to look at his work and see how it has changed over time from the early geometric paintings to his more recent explosive, three-dimensional pieces.These huge artworks fabricated of printed and painted metal shapes have inspired me over the past couple of decades. I was fortunate to have viewed one of these in an Iowa art museum in the 1980's. I remember discovering this amazing, lively piece occupying an entire wall in one of the gallery spaces. It literally made me gasp out loud. The colors, patterns, shapes, movement and sheer size were overwhelming. The power of the thing caused an emotional response that surprised me. The painting I've included here, "The Pequod Meets the Bachelor", 1988, is similar to the one I found in Iowa that day. Stella produced a large body of paintings and prints based on Melville's "Moby Dick", and this is an example from that long series. What was so ...

I wanted to post an update to one of the paintings I'm currently working on. I've begun to tweak the spaces a bit within the canvas, attempting to arrive at a resolved balance but keeping it dynamic. Some colors are adjusted to create separation and depth between forms. I started with an interesting under-painting that had an organic quality I'd like to retain. Careful consideration is being given to where and how to alter the surface as layers are built. This is a balancing act trying to get all the players to dance together in a way that is interesting and right. This type of abstraction is a challenge for me, since it is complete invention. In creative terms, it's like stepping off a ledge and weaving the parachute on the way down. There are no real references I'm basing it on other than my own sketches, therefore I'm left with the task of making an idea work with no referential support to assist in decision-making. The work will live or die based on the s...

I've been working on a couple of new paintings that appeared in an earlier posting . These pieces are based on shape drawings I've been making for years. Some are ideas that started as doodles on notebook and scrap paper I saved in a folder or glued into sketchbooks. The concept of springing off casual sketches is interesting to me. When I was a young art student in college I struggled to find a subject. For me it was a great frustration. I felt I could technically do anything presented by my instructors, but the lack of a subject often left me stuck, and the quality of work reflected my floundering. It was not that I couldn't draw, or paint, or sculpt. Landscape and figurative images were not a struggle, but these at the time were subjects used for practicing technique, and I was looking to create original thematic work that possessed some emotive quality. The landscape and figure are somehow related to everything I create, as they probably are for most artists. The cha...

Small branches tumble to earth Like old dried fingers hacked off trees Needle darts jet through space Launched from limbs by icey breeze Nut bombs bounce off littered drive Busy squirrels for winter hide The bounty dropped from oak and pine Nature lives the season name As fruit and flotsom fall and fall

During my freshman year of college at Moorhead State in 1987, I was fortunate to have been a student of Mary Pryor, English Professor. She recently passed away. Ms Pryor didn't know it, but she had a profound affect on me as a student and as an aspiring artist. Her encouragement and critiques inspired me as a student writer. This ultimately trickled into my creative process for art. I think of her often and am indebted to her for her contribution to my personal growth and for opening up new horizons of creativity. Her poetry reveals her incredible spirit and creative brilliance. She was quite a lady, and I'm sure there are countless others she touched through the years as they passed in and out of her classroom. Here's a beautiful example of her work, which captures so uniquely the people and place of the Moorhead area: Red River People Here on the ridgepole of the continent where rivers amble north against their kind, transplanted Scandinavians resent the glossing tongue, ...

The sound was faint. He paused To detect Some wind's whisper nudging a leaf or other effect Of subtle disturbance Of animal or other. He ceased breathing Feigning death for a moment To freeze his own nature. Listening into the wood Listening Finding a wind's whisper nudging.