My annual studio sale just opened today and continues through Sunday! I have fun choosing a bunch of original paintings each year for this event (and included some unframed originals for 2024).
I can ship all of these, so if you live far, far away, let me know if you’d like details on that. If you’re in Denver and would like to visit my studio to see these all in person, I’d love to give you a tour! Email me and we can schedule a time. I’ve included a few of my favorites below.
I’m continuing my writing journey and just completed a 8-week workshop course on writing memoirs and personal essays with Lighthouse Writers Workshop here in Denver. This is all so new to me; I feel very much out of my comfort zone and quickly found that painting with words is hard. But, I’m learning a lot about telling and writing stories.
For now, I’m compelled to write about my life mainly to just get these stories out of my head and onto paper. This urge that drives me is quite similar to my abstract painting process… I often show up at my painting table in my studio just to get paintings out of my head and onto paper.
So, I’m going with my flow – here is a longer essay (draft) that I’m finally getting onto paper.
The End of the End by David Castle
I had finished my announcement of just two words and it was my mother who was suddenly at my side, tightly gripping my hand with both of hers with tears already streaming down her face. She was on her knees next to me as I sat at our family dining table, in the chair I grew up in, in the log home that I had helped build, in an empty North Idaho meadow. My stoic father sat in his paternal chair at the other end of the table. I noticed that he’d already begun to disappear as this moment coalesced.
Time would tick normally for the next sixty seconds or so on the nearby grandfather clock — the one left to me by my mother’s mother when she had died. I didn’t know yet that it would someday be denied to me, just because I was me. And in those first few seconds I knew that each of us at that table — me, my father and my mother — would never tick normally again. I brought the three of us together for this moment and it would now stretch and warp as the many paths of my young life converged like so many trains jamming from sidings onto the main trunk line.
It had been quite a journey for all of us to meet at this table in this moment. My solo trip from my home in Denver to visit them wasn’t that unusual, but I knew some of the travel logistics had appeared a bit mysterious, especially the rental car I had driven myself in from the Spokane airport, rather than the usual pickup by my father. I had called a family meeting at the table where we had done so many times before. No one except my father called family meetings at this table.
I thought about all of the places we had each experienced along our paths; they connected like dots on a map. These “elsewheres” ticked through my head, flip photo album style: the big city and our grand escape to the forgotten farm deep in the Ozarks followed by a different escape to North Idaho for more forced labor, this time to build the family log home. Finally it was my turn and I made my own escape to college in Arizona, then back to my native Colorado, then four years in Europe before returning to Colorado. A grand total of 17 houses in 4 states and 3 countries for my young life.
Sitting at that table, a bizarre thought zipped through my head, “Am I a nomad?”
Nomad or not, my paths surely took me to more elsewheres than many and I knew this had been important as I discovered my own life along the way.
“Eyes on the crisis,” I thought, “I’m here for my big reveal.”
A few more seconds ticked as my mother kept talking. Or gushing. Or begging. I wasn’t sure which and I felt a brief moment of overwhelm from her tears, her grip and her words. I squirmed as I smeared away a few of my own very different tears with my free hand. I knew what my tears meant: an unfathomable relief that bloomed right in my core. And freedom — total and absolute. I didn’t know what her tears meant; I still couldn’t understand her words. Instead, I focused on that relief that grew from my core and expanded, like my vital organs were filling with helium, punctuated by that satisfying sound you hear at Party City when they rapidly inflate balloons from that huge tank. But I didn’t float away; my mother’s hands anchored me in my chair. And now I had to resist a familiar urge to recoil from this grip.
“I don’t know this person and she doesn’t know me,” I thought.
I squirmed some more as I tolerated the touch of this stranger; I couldn’t yet extricate my hand without creating more of a scene. This moment was yet another stop along my path and I had known for awhile that, at some point, I would sit in this log house with these strangers and say: “I’m gay.”
Now I braced as a stunning journey began, all within the remaining sixty seconds that continued to tick. All as her grip on my hand persisted and her grip on my life ended. The man at the other end of the table faded even more; the log house around me disappeared. Closing my eyes, I pictured myself in one of my favorite, safe places — a comfortable railcar. I had been here many times before to contemplate and cope, watching selected scenes from my life roll by out the picture windows. I had always loved trains, especially this one introduced to me in a poem by Robert J. Hastings. He envisioned a life focused on the journey, rather than some destination or station. I let the scene out that window run with a view of the many divergent paths my young life had already traveled — many alone, without my parents by my side.
“All that you’ve known and nurtured is false,” I thought.
I opened my eyes and watched my mother’s face for a few seconds. I felt an almost audible snap in my head, like a rubber band, as these paths came together. It resulted in a jarring clarity.
“This isn’t the beginning of the end,” I thought clearly, “this is actually the end of the end.”
I sat frozen in my chair. I hadn’t said anything more as that clocked ticked, and I noticed how those deep, throaty ticks were separated by a pause that stretches impossibly until the full pendulum arc snaps and the next tick arrives. It was a curious sound that only grandfather clocks seem to make.
I thought about the beginning of this particular journey in discovering myself. It was a beginning without an exact date and time, but I knew there was a moment when I had realized something was different. It was sometime in the 5th grade — I was perhaps 12 or 13. It was a fragile and innocent beginning as I simply, desperately wanted to be best friends with certain classmates. But then it grew from pursuing best friendships to a different feeling, one that was somehow not the same as the awakening in everyone around me. What exactly was different I didn’t know, but it was bad. What, exactly was bad, I also didn’t know. Maybe the instincts I had developed over years of traveling this world and everything it and my parents had instilled in me kicked in. Instincts that had crept in, seeping deep over so many years, molding my values, my sense of self, my very identity. It informed my knowledge of right and wrong. It warned of the eternal consequences of disobedience to my parents and God.
This would culminate the next year in a sharp sting — the truth of what, exactly, was going on and who I was. I was gay. As comprehension dawned I knew with certainty that whatever was wrong with me was something I had to hide at all costs. This moment was actually the beginning of the end.
There were no defining characters around when I realized all of this — no role models anywhere to be found in Ozark County, Missouri. Still watching from my safe railcar, I saw now that there were glimmers of hope in that time though, out in the greater world. Spotty flickers of growing tolerance.
“Fuck tolerance,” I nearly said out loud to my parents, still at the table.
In this moment the choice for them was simple: acceptance, but with celebratory cake and balloons. Or — nothing at all. I knew I had already done the hard work by then, just me and God. I had sunk to the depths of self loathing and turned to the heavens to pray it away. I had survived constant fears of being discovered and ideations of suicide by autobahn. And I had done all of that while crafting and perfecting my golden-boy facade, developed especially for my mother. It was my only key to this family and for so long it had consumed nearly everything I had to give.
That’s what the beginning of the end was like. And now, sitting at the family dining table in the log home I helped my parents build, this moment was so very clearly not the beginning of anything. So here we were at the end of the end. It could end right now in this moment with my mother still on her knees next to me. Or, it could drag out for years as we battled for the favor of God, Nurture and Nature. I again studied her face, but she was still crying and I still did not know any of her words. They could be “get out”, but I finally understood them to be something like “we will get through this with you.”
I thought about all of the paths that came together in this moment as my mother held my hand. Most of them I had walked alone — well, just me and God. It was Him who I first begged for forgiveness for being the human He had made me to be. I begged Him to change me at my fundamental core — to take this away so I could fit into my family and this earth. I would wrestle and contort myself but ultimately, He denied those requests; He had already made me perfect.
The scene from my railcar resumed and now I saw the low mountains of southern Germany rolling by and knew the next stop was the town of Triberg, one of my favorite spots nestled next to Germany’s highest waterfall. I had lived in Düsseldorf for a few years, on the banks of the Rhine, and it was in those years that the spiraling with myself and God peaked. I often escaped the stress of my technology work and our very German clients, racing south through the countryside to the heart of the Black Forest. At some point on these drives, an uninvited passenger joined me: the key components of a more earthly escape from all of this. A final, simple solution that I could control. My project-manager brain sorted out those components — When, Where and How — as I sped at German speeds on those autobahns. I really don’t know how I processed who I was and how I didn’t fit as I sped, but I easily catalogued the possible Wheres along the way: concrete overpasses marked by accompanying ausfarhts that alerted me as I approached these easy targets. I became quite familiar with these Wheres as I traveled my favorite route. Each autobahn drive I took was my next available When. And the How? A simple jerk of the wheel that would end it all in a crash at over 100 mph. It could be so simple, but I once again chose the difficult path, defying so many, but now no longer defying God.
Back in this moment with my mother still crying on her knees, I no longer wished to kill myself. But I pressed my eyes closed thinking, “I suspect that there will be more than a few moments in the coming years that I’ll wish I could die though.”
I next marveled at the total collapse of my grand, golden-boy facade… I had nearly forgotten about that. I pictured it as a grotesque, thick armor lacking any human features but with all sorts of tangled sharp and pointy things sticking out of an otherwise dull surface. It slid off and all we heard was that clock ticking. I wondered at the time and energy I had dedicated to this facade and how much of my soul had it consumed. I marveled at how I had, apparently, pulled off this fake role for so long with the very people who thought they knew me best.
My face grew hot with embarrassment knowing that my mother still gripped the hand of a stranger, knowing that she gripped the hand of a child she didn’t know and who had never even existed. Finally, mercifully, the sixty seconds ticked out and I untangled myself from her grip, from my seat at that table, and from everything. I glanced down at my faded father as I stood and made my second poetic announcement. A final soliloquy:
“This is who I am. This is my authentic self given to me by God discovered and nurtured by myself. You don’t know me but I came here to give you that chance. And that choice.”
No one spoke further and my relief quickly carried me out of that house and away to sit beneath the “big pine” – my favorite thinking spot.
For another, single day I allowed this scene — the end of the end — to continue. There wasn’t an agenda or schedule and we all vaguely milled about that log house. There were “public” moments of my mother crying on the living room couch. I heard other “private” moments of her crying alone in her bedroom. These weren’t big, dramatic sob sessions, but it seemed clear that a lot was coming together for her. My father hovered around not saying much. Perhaps he was already brainstorming silently to himself about future plans for my conversion and salvation. Of plans to take me straight to that mothership in Colorado Springs where they have a whole team of family experts just waiting to focus on fixing me. His silence endured through the discussions I had mostly with my mother. We talked about my real life and my real self just a bit, but only in snippets we all could handle.
We didn’t talk about the past at first — those years of the beginning of the end. Instead, I mentioned my hopes of a future life with my own family. The specter of two men raising a family was too much; more crying and anguish. I mentioned being “safe” in the era of AIDS; more crying and anguish. And then we did turn to the past — and those snippets got bizarre. As my mother searched for reason and fault, there was an angry discussion about my father choosing to never have the “sex talk” with us boys (my sister was filled in on all the details at some point by my mother). The bitter look she gave my father made it clear whose mistake that had been (maybe she thought this omission in my education had made me this way).
In the middle of this single day I noticed the things we didn’t talk about — most glaring was the absence of any explanation or justification for my parent’s reaction. I knew they thought it was guided by God, but they failed to present any bible verses to support their fear and lack of acceptance. No one explained the disconnect between their professed unconditional love and the foundation of rejection they had already built.
Towards the end of that day, most startling was my mother’s description of the moment she first panicked at the thought that I might be gay; I was still in her womb at the time. She described her severe depression upon my birth and her decision to dry up her mother’s milk rather than subject herself to nursing a homosexual. She described that it was the only time in her life she sought the help of a psychologist.
She wouldn’t explain further how she (and my father?) got through that period and I’ll never know more about my welcome into the world. Yet still, I tried to picture a new-born David exiting Lutheran Hospital in the autumn of 1967.
“How does a mother know her fetus is gay?” I wondered.
Now I saw how, in the subsequent years of my life, she made many pointed (and sometimes cruel) efforts to instill in me those things that would perhaps discourage gayness: a relentless, non-negotiable masculinity, admonishments to not “be a sissy”, forced hunting trips with real guns and forced team sports like the football my older brother played. He had always been a model of manliness and I guess my efforts to drown surplus kittens or slice the heads off chickens or castrate calves didn’t prove much…
In later years, it was my manly brother who would declare that sexuality was a choice, for once without any biblical reference. He next proclaimed he chose to be straight. Bravo! Really, quite a marvelous choice… cake and balloons for you, too.
I was closest to my sister growing up and she initially choose a sort of vague neutrality. That quickly proved to be an unsuccessful path for her as she succumbed to the godly influences of my parents.
Through all of this, my choice remained: accept God’s gift, one that did not allow me to choose who I loved.
Just over thirty years have now past since those sixty seconds ticked by at that table. In this time, the end of the end did finally end. I had become fully me and took control of my path and the only destination it could lead to: forgiveness. That was all that remained for me — all I had left to give. In the time since the end, my mother’s unconditional love had morphed into hate. She had demonstrated it often in her last years in cruel ways, no longer hiding it from me or God. And then one July day she was gone. Her death from ALS was belatedly reported to me via text from my estranged brother’s daughter who braved to defy my mother’s dying wish that I not be notified of her departure until after she was in the ground.
A few years after her death, as we emerged from the pandemic, I travelled to that log house in North Idaho. It still sat among my favorite tamaracks; my hands no longer remembered any part of its construction. I called the trip my Forgiveness Tour, and it was an opportunity to say those words in person.
The log house.
I visited my mother’s grave. Her site was still unmarked as my siblings feuded over those most important of Christian priorities — money and stuff. I navigated to an area about 14 feet northwest of a giant evergreen, while getting real-time navigation instructions from my sister. I felt like a sort of grave-comber as I swept my cellphone back and forth attempting to find the slight depression in the ground, just hoping that it was the right spot. I had brought a single yellow rose — her favorite — from the Safeway in town and placed it there. Then, on a whim, I sprinkled rainbow Skittles over her, too. It made me smile as I sat in an old camping chair taking in the scene and popping the remaining candies in my mouth. I worried that she wasn’t with God in her final destination.
“I forgive you, Mom,” I said out loud to the ground and sky.
It felt like the many other times when I had silently sent out my forgiveness, not sure if it ever reached her. This one was carried away, up through the pines on the late summer breeze. Nothing happened as I sat. There were no witnesses and no tears. No one gripped my hand, no one mourned and no specter of hate rose from that place. It was just a moment at another elsewhere along my path.
As for my father, he still lived in that log house and he was still disappearing as the substitute reality of dementia took him. I sat with him for a bit in silence while we both watched the tamaracks that had witnessed the past 40 years. My familiar, simple sadness sat with us. The logs pressed in around us seeming to have soaked up more hate over the years than love. Once again that clock — my clock — stood sentinel. But now it was silent; its pendulum hung still. I marveled at knowing that my mother had actually directed from her grave that I was never to receive my clock after all, and I wondered about its uncertain future.
“I forgive you, Dad,” I finally told him.
“For what?” was his immediate response, rare and coherent.
So I explained the rejection, and the oppression, and the hate, and the crusade for a cure: a summary of my life, from the beginning and now almost to the end. I described for him the years he focused on actively seeking a godly cleanse for me and his refusal to consider any support for himself — from God or from man — to understand, or cope, or support, or accept. All of this didn’t take long and I next handed him a small abstract I had painted just for him. I held my breath and watched as he mouthed the word “Castle” where I had written my name on the back just above the title “Forgiveness“. He puzzled over it carefully for several more minutes in silence, while I took a bitter moment to reflect on his zero acknowledgment of my 20-year career as an artist. He looked over at me, still gripping “Forgiveness”, and shared his random thoughts about the inequality of play time he had experienced as a youth with black players like me on the basketball court. And then, like an errant sunbeam piercing the scene, he apologized for “stepping on my toes.” I wish I could have pocketed that sunbeam as I left him in the stillness of that log house, knowing I most likely wouldn’t see him again.
“Forgiveness” where I left it with my Dad.
The end of the end had reached its end a long time ago. I don’t dwell on it much anymore, having accepted the choices we each made. But I’m still sad sometimes whenever I watch from my railcar the many scenes they missed along the way: joys and sorrows, failures and triumphs, my travels and all of the elsewheres. And my loves, especially a husband of over 20 years, my forever person found out of billions.
I’m not a parent but I will never comprehend the unconditional love – with conditions – that my mother and father professed, all governed by the same God.
For me, I persevere, no longer mired. I’m lifted up by the forgiveness that remains in me. I often greet each new day with just that.
My Mom loved to eat cake. I once captured a perfect snapshot of that love as she sat simply eating a piece of cake. She was nestled on the velvety, green couch – the antique one from my elegant grandparent’s prim home in Ohio. We were never allowed to sit upon that couch as sticky children but in this moment, its former pristine days were forgotten and there were no worries about cake crumbs… or any crumbs. Over the years, my Mother ate many comfortable pieces of cake on that couch and in this captured moment she had quite a large piece perched precariously on her lap.
Everything about her in that moment conveyed a certain comfort. She wore a dull gray sweatshirt and pants that were badged with the stains of constructing the log home around her. And my mother was — and always had been — a natural beauty. She typically presented herself without veils of makeup or other expected embellishments. It was also just plain practical. She had escaped a finer life in the city to live off the land in the Ozarks. And then escaped that stifling life to construct our log home in North Idaho. And all of that happened without the frivolities of makeup (mostly).
So, she seemed quite content on that couch, eating cake. She was completely comfortable in her skin, and wholly satisfied with who she had become at that point in her life, despite the coming tsunamis she would unleash that rocked my young self, forever changing my own trajectory.
The snapshot I took that day caught her in mid-bite with a flash of arctic white frosting disappearing into her mouth. It was that perfect moment of enjoying cake when it all comes together: the spongy crumb that only commercial bakeries manufactured, and the oh-so-soft, pillowy frosting, a marvel of sugar whipped up with who-knows-what (not the fresh butter we used to churn on the farm, that’s for sure).
But her presence felt diminished from her heyday in that cake-eating moment – diminutive but still with a satisfied air of contentment. Am I surprised? She had probably earned that satisfied self and that contented moment. After all, she had spent years working rigidly to “live off the land” on a forgotten farm. For decades she had worked to instill her values: non-negotiable masculinity, an unbending work ethic, and a healthy dose of simmering anger in us boys, and in my sister, an unfailing “right-and-proper” way of doing things in the isolated women’s realms of the kitchen and chicken coop. I’m sure now that much of this way of life and its values was gleaned right out of the classic Foxfire anthologies. Probably even the “carob” years during which she imposed a healthier cake lifestyle on our family. Carob is (and always will be) an utterly woeful substitute.
So, this is the woman in that snapshot with that captured presence. But now I also know what else she conveyed. While that bite hides what her mouth would say, the rest of her countenance sums it up: defiance. I consider those years when our family lived off the land without store-bought cakes from the Town and Country grocery. Or the years without chocolate. Or processed sugar. My mother defied anyone who noticed the disconnect or the sacrifices as she ate that bite of cake.
I’m continuing this new path of non-fiction writing and am now in week three of a workshop focused on writing the personal narrative or memoir. I quickly realized how much I don’t know about writing and, at this particular moment, I feel very frustrated. On my other, creative path, abstract paintings usually flow quite nicely – and successfully – out of my head and onto paper. That’s not happening with writing non-fiction, at least the “nicely” and “successfully” parts. I am able to get lots of raw words onto paper, but I really don’t know what I’m doing after that. I don’t have this creative process using words instead of paint figured out. I don’t know how to craft raw words into a compelling story or essay. I don’t know how to critically assess what I’ve written and how to make it “better”. I don’t even know the best/proper/most effective way to choose vocabulary.
Well, lots of room for learning and growth.
The following is from our second writing homework assignment which was to “write a scene of a person in a place performing a simple action”, focusing on capturing what I want the reader to “see” in about 500 words. I chose a familiar action from my distant past: milking a cow. It was at least an interesting process for me to remember – milking our cow in our barn on a small farm in southern Missouri…
David Castle January, 2024
Milking Frosty
When I was nine, our family moved from the evil, big city to a small farm in southern Missouri. So began a very different life for us, literally situated in Ozark county less than seven miles from the Arkansas border. One of my daily chores in this new life was to “partner” with my brother to milk our cow Frosty.
During the school week, our morning routine and its timeline were driven by the critical milestone of catching the bus. Catching the bus involved a 3/4 mile walk to the bus stop itself, varying that grand timeline based on how fast we’d walk – or had to run. Failure meant my wrathful mother would have to drive us to school and we all knew she didn’t have time for needless trips to town. So, this milestone and the consequences of missing it spurred us through our morning work, particularly when it came to milking Frosty.
For this chore, I can’t paint some bucolic scene of a smiling cow awaiting our arrival at the barn, ready to be milked. But, inexplicably, some mornings that’s exactly what we found. Other mornings, when Frosty decided she had other things to do, it introduced a stressful element of the unknown into our timeline as she could be nearly anywhere on our 800-acre farm.
On one particular morning, when no smiling cow was waiting at the barn, my brother lost the “who’s going to find her” argument. Off he went. We didn’t have a fair, planned approach to deciding which one of us had to locate Frosty on mornings like this; I was nine and lacked the project management skills to manage any of our chores, especially one involving a resource like my brother.
Our barn housing the milk stall was hillbilly-chic red, with a bright, yellow smiley face that lorded over the barnyard. My father had painted that smiley face, 12-feet in diameter, on the front of our barn the year we arrived in the Ozarks. For years, this monstrous 1970’s emoji belied the horrors and death that occurred within: drowned kittens, castrated calves, an assorted parade of unexplained, dead vermin, and the sweaty summers we toiled whilst playing mud-dauber dodge (sometimes unsuccessfully). And on this particular morning, that smiley face would keep on smiling as an untold number of brain cells met an unexpected death.
Finally, my brother returned with Frosty and we all settled into the stall for the job. He seemed unusually pissed off as we milked and our usual bickering continued under the cow’s belly. Suddenly, a boot lashed out from the other side of the cow, neatly missing the milk pail and landing squarely on the upturned bucket that I perched upon. Not even my grip on those teats could save me from falling backwards and the back of my head smacked the jagged edge of the crude, concrete foundation. I had never really seen stars before that morning as those untold number of brain cells joined the death parade.
Back at the house for assessment, fear morphed from my injury to the much more practical: fear that I would require a real doctor visit, which would require a “needless” trip into town, which would require the outlay of hard-earned farm cash, which would require me to miss school. And ultimately, all of this would require me to take the dreaded quarterly tests. Our school had quite a Draconian but effective attendance policy in those days: any absenteeism required the guilty student to take a full day of exams at the end of the quarter – the quarterly tests. Perfect attendance rewarded the student with a full day off.
Hours later in the principal’s office, my angry mother pleaded my case, making sure he got a good look at what she called my “beauty mark”: eight stitches sewn by a real, townie doctor. But, I had missed the morning classes and farm accidents were not an exception. My reward that particular day would be those dreaded quarterly tests.
Our red barn with its yellow smiley face (circa 1977).
It is now time to get more “out of my head” than just the abstracts I paint. Many of my abstract paintings start in my head as I formulate what to paint next, followed by a sometimes urgent need to get these paintings I’ve envisioned onto paper.
So, embarking on something new, I’m now part of a non-fiction writing workshop, specifically focused on writing the personal narrative or memoir. Huh. Well, we’ll see where this path takes this painter, but at least I know I’ll get more out of my head and onto paper, which seems to help process my life.
The following is from one of our first writing homework assignments to choose and describe an “object”.
David Castle January, 2024
Rocket Ship
My new rocket ship entered my art collection as a gift this past Christmas. It’s a small sculpture, maybe just five inches tall, and is now part of the gallery of small works that I’ve curated on a wall in my own art studio. My new rocket ship is one of the few pieces I can hold and turn in my hands rather than just park on my wall. My new rocket ship is certainly delicate but also looks and feels sturdy, being made of clay.
Green was once my purple. In the 1970’s, still only girls — and sissies — chose purple as their favorite. Early on, I seemed to know instinctively (and from the budding and alarming cues around me) that choosing purple as my favorite would be a revealing mistake. So, for decades my purple was actually green. And green (mossy green), being nice enough, sufficed for those years that I wasn’t me. Now, I can (mostly) embrace purple as my purple and I love to discover and point out the perfect purples I find around me in my everyday life.
My new rocket ship features one of those perfect purples – a rather dusty hue with a bit more blue than red with some black mixed in to take that garish grape edge off. The artist choose wonderfully and with restraint, placing this perfect purple on the pointed and rounded nose cone. The perfect purple nose cone is also actually a cap. Upon removal the empty, hollow body is revealed. It’s still empty right now and I wonder what would I put in there? Maybe something green.
The three, classical support struts (or fins) are also this perfect purple while the main rocket body is the natural color of the clay – soft gray with the tiniest warm hint of yellow. The body is mottled with darker grays and blacks – I’m guessing this is the texture of outer space. Clearly this rocket ship has rocketed before. The overall finish of my new rocket ship is the natural matte of clay. No gleaming glossiness. A focused, black jet engine flange completes the bottom of the rocket body, with the promise of departure to a better elsewhere.
Finally, the body features a small Colorado flag as its origin identifier. Not the traditional, backwards-flying flag, but one affixed with a proper, landscape orientation that doesn’t cause my head to cock sideways. I feel satisfied that my new rocket ship hails from my native Colorado.
When I hold my new rocket ship (careful with that nose cone cap!), I personally believe it comes with yet another promise of a different “elsewhere” for me. This one being my never-to-be-lived space opera in the inner planets. You see, one day last summer upon exiting one of the really big big box stores, I announced a plan to emigrate to Mars in the first wave of terraforming colonists. I immediately upgraded that plan to actually leading the effort myself. I’d become the first to arrive in a final solution to escaping the horrors of this planet Earth. Around that same time last summer, I remember my fascination as I examined a small display of rocket ship sculptures at a local art festival. Each was a perfect rocket shape – delicate but sturdy enough. Each held that promise of another elsewhere, far away from my current elsewhere. Mars would be quite an elsewhere – literally millions of miles away! I didn’t get to meet the artist who made these wonderful rocket ships that summer day, but he now knows that I love his art… and my new rocket ship.
I do realize that my new rocket ship resembles those of the billionaires with its classic rocket shape. But my new rocket ship is so much sturdier and although empty, holds the promise of a different cargo – me, and those I love. Its shape and perfect purple are most likely impossible for actual space travel (or escaping our Earth). But who cares? Someday I’m going to Mars, along with a lot of perfect purple.
Rocket Ship, by Colorado artist John Randolph Hamilton III
Like many artists, my art studio is an important component in my creative process. Over the past 20 years, I’ve had no less than 11 studio spaces for making my abstract art. That feels like “a lot” and I’m hoping my current studio will serve me for a long time. The good news is that it is one of the best spaces I’ve occupied for making my art. It is just the right size, it feels open and supportive of my unique creative processes, I love the bright (artificial) lighting and my favorite purple floor always grounds me.
But, like only a few of my past studio spaces, this one is also a refuge for me. A calm space in the turmoil and drama of the outside world. A space free from technology other than my phone. A place to just sit and breathe or ponder or stew or reflect or meditate (briefly)… I’m very grateful I was able to create this space and that it serves me so well.
I launched my annual Spring Studio Sale and have selected over 30 original abstracts that are 50-75% savings from my regular prices. I love having my sale so I can clear out a bit of space in my studio AND send people home with some new art for their collections.
I’m so grateful for my second career as an abstract artist… nearly 20 years of painting abstracts after years in corporate technology! I sure don’t miss the days of software development, data warehousing and IT project management…
For most of my 20 years as an artist, I’ve painted mostly abstracts with square and linear shapes. Now, I’d like to “re-introduce” myself and my art as I’ve turned things upside down over the last 5 months… painting circles!
And, I’ll exclusively launch 12 of my new Circles abstracts in an online exhibit with Artburst Studios. The exhibit opens on 2/23 at 2:32pm MST and only goes for 3 days, so visit Artburst Studios website here for details on how to attend!
Last autumn, I was invited to join a new virtual artist group – Artburst Studios – and participate in their inaugural online exhibit coming up February 23-25, 2023 (visit Artburst Studios Website).
I’m quite excited about this group for many reasons – mainly because I’ve come to highly respect the founders and their approach to launching Artburst Studios and all of the detailed ways they’re doing it right.
But, it has also forever changed my abstractions. The way I paint shapes and colors “in my head” when not in my studio. The focus I’ve had for nearly 20 years on painting squares and stripes – lots of linear shapes and corners and sharp edges.
The theme for Artburst Studios exhibit is “Inside, Outside, Upside Down”. So for the past several months, I’ve embraced this by turning my square and stripe shapes “upside down” and painting… CIRCLES!
I quickly found circles to be a “perfect” shape to explore… just like squares. While I continue to use some of my favorite, self-discovered abstract painting techniques, my biggest challenge was how to paint circle shapes that I loved. I wanted perfect round shapes with some rough/irregular lines, giving me a break from some of the crisp, sharp edges of my square past.
So, here’s a few snapshots of how I paint my circles using an unexpected painting tool – PVC pipe connectors and caps! I’ve collected a variety of sizes (even ordering an 8″ cap online since Home Depot didn’t carry caps that large). I’ve sanded the edges of the PVC a bit, but they otherwise work great as is to create “perfect” circle shapes with lines that are varied and unexpected. More on how I apply oil paint to the PVC and stamp the actual shapes in a future post!
My growing collection of Circle-making tools.Stamping a Circle.Fields of Circles – perfectly round with irregular lines.
After the horrific shooting at Club Q in Colorado Springs last month, I painted two rainbow abstracts as I processed this. One I sold to wonderful Collectors here in Denver and donated all the proceeds to the Colorado Healing Fund to benefit those affected by the shooting.
The second rainbow abstract was cut into my Micro Abstracts and sent out to both allies and haters in positions of power right here in my native Colorado.
Earlier this week I sent rainbow Micros to allies who clearly use their voices and votes to support LGBT+ folks, including: US Representative Diana DeGette, Senator Michael Bennet, Senator John Hickenlooper and Governor Jared Polis.
Today I’m sending out more rainbow Micros to haters here in Colorado who use their voices and take actions to continue oppressing LGBT+ folks. And they continue to normalize hate. Clearly sometimes the consequences are death for those just living their authentic lives, whether they are shot in a safe space or they take their own lives.
Blood is on their hands: US Representative Lauren Boebert, US Representative Ken Buck, US Representative Doug Lamborn, Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers, Focus on the Family President Jim Daly.
Five Micro Abstracts bloodied for haters here in Colorado.This Micro Abstract was bloodied just for Rep. Boebert.
I’ve been painting while I process the recent shooting in Colorado Springs this past weekend. At first I felt numb and just “jumbled up”. As I painted these rainbow colors, weary sadness and sharp anger is what holds me now.
I firmly believe from my own experiences and observations that this is the result of the non-acceptance and hate TAUGHT and FOSTERED by many on this planet of so many people, but especially LGBT+ folks just being themselves. Just being the people who God created them to be.
To the many conservatives out there – this means YOU! And if you truly believe that your own heart and mind are hate free, you continue to elect leaders with loud voices who don’t accept, who oppress, who voice false nonsense and hate about those different from you. And if you remain silent while this goes on and people die, your hands are bloody too.
And for some of my family members – “love” without full acceptance isn’t love at all. It’s hate and fosters this world where people are killed just for being themselves.
I’m done trying to change minds and hearts about acceptance and love. Now I’m working to support those who are hated and in crisis because of it.
It has been awhile since my last post, but I need to get this topic out of my head (and my studio) and onto “paper”. You may have seen my Instagram (davidcastleart) posts recently about my Forgiveness Tour to Idaho where I verbalized to my Mom (who passed away 2 years ago) and my Dad (who has severe dementia) many things that I forgive them for from my 54 years as their son. Forgiveness topics included some big things like rejecting me completely just for being gay, and for some small things like reminding me to not be a “sissy” when I was young.
I also forgave them for never acknowledging my career change 20 years ago from a corporate technology guy to a full-time abstract artist. And this is what I’ve been thinking more about in my studio lately as I paint. I just don’t understand it and, given my Mom is gone and my Dad doesn’t know who I am, I’m sure I’ll never understand why.
Was this just another general rejection of me? Was becoming an artist not “manly” enough for their conservative/traditional views? Was giving up a 6-figure salary (and all the trappings that came with that) too “irresponsible” of me for my future? Was embracing my creative self being too much of a “sissy”?
I’ll never know.
But, after 20 years of pursuing my passion and embracing and living as my artistic self, I’m OK with letting this fade as I continue my forgiveness journey. Now, back to painting!
At work in my Denver Studio, where I paint AND think…
I’ve never posted much about the “big gay journey” part of my life, but this Pride month it has been on my mind. So, I’m sharing what I thought about as I painted this Pride-inspired, colorful abstract today.
I knew that I was different somehow from a pretty early age. Those who say “don’t say gay” are wrong… I think I would have benefitted from knowing that gay people and gay parents and gay families even existed at an early age. It never came up in my conservative family and I had no idea what was going on with me through my childhood. There were no visible gay people around, nor role models in rural, conservative southern Missouri. By the time I figured things out on my own, I knew being gay must be very much hidden from the world. And loathed by myself.
After years of suppressing who I was, accepting the oppression I witnessed around me, thinking about ending my life (just a jerk of the wheel going 100mph on the autobahn), I finally accepted me as God made me. I was 27 when I finally came out, and then spent the next decade trying desperately to change the minds and hearts of my immediate family, while my parents pleaded with me to get “cured”. But, the resolve of my parents, and brother, and sister to continue rejecting me only solidified as the years progressed. I believe this kind of hate is taught, learned and still advocated by many. I still am in wonder that I made it through it all, but I did and my journey continues out the other end.
Now, my life is full. Full of my art, the love of my life and best friend Steve, many wonderful extended family members and a sense of peace. Yes, I’ve had to let go of much and have found forgiving my immediate family, especially my parents, is more of an ongoing process than a single decision point.
So yes, it does get better and yes, I’m proud. Proud of being the gay man God made me to be. So I paint these rainbow colors with lots of reflection and pride!
I kicked off my career change in 2003 from computer scientist to abstract artist by exhibiting at many art festivals in Colorado and the West. The Denver Arts Festival has been one of my favorites and I was awarded the Best in Show award in 2008!
Now that I’m back in Colorado, I’ve been selected to exhibit once again at this wonderful festival, full of local and national artists. If you’re in town, please plan to come by to visit (or meet) me and see almost all new abstracts that I’ve painted over the last several months.
Denver Arts Festival details are below and you can find me in Booth #85… hope to see you this weekend!
I’ve released 15 new mini abstracts on my website and invite you to jump over to www.davidcastleart.com to check them out!
No waiting for the supply chain to catch up, these original abstract paintings are all ready to go, for shipping or pick up at my Denver studio.
Each features a brand-new resin varnish and I love the rich, glass-like finish it gives each painting. I think you will too… they’ll make a great addition to your own art collection or for your gift-giving list for the upcoming holidays. I included a few sample mini abstracts for you to browse below, but please visit www.davidcastleart.com to view them all!
“Rainbow Drops” Mini Abstract“Mossy Earth” Mini Abstract“Ochre and Graphite” Mini Abstract
New mini abstracts with a brand-new, glass-like resin varnish… releasing to everyone on October 28th!
I’ve been hard at work in my studio painting fifteen new mini abstracts, each with a brand-new resin varnish. That’s the reflection you see above and I’m loving the rich, glass-like finish it gives each painting.
I’ll be releasing all fifteen new mini abstracts to folks on my email list first on Wednesday morning, October 27th. So, you’ll have first choice to add them to your art collection (or gift list) before I announce them to my social media followers the next day.
I’m super excited and think you’ll love them. If you’re not on my very-occasional email list, visit my website homepage to add your name to the list so you won’t miss out on the initial release!
This summer has been a flurry of activity (and stress) to get me and my husband Steve moved back to my native Denver, Colorado. We arrived to a temporary apartment living situation on May 1st and haven’t looked back. Less than a month later we were under contract to buy a great townhome in Denver’s Central Park (formally Stapleton) neighborhood. I can’t believe how blessed and fortunate we were to find a place to buy so quickly in the hot Denver housing market!
Now that we’re mostly settled, we’ve been enjoying the main reason we moved back to Denver – spending time with old friends and extended family here in Colorado. We even took a day off to hike one of my most favorite hikes in the world… the Hagerman Tunnel railroad bed trail near Leadville, Colorado.
Steve and I at the abandoned, narrow-gauge railroad tunnel – Hagerman Tunnel (August, 2021).
I’ve also been getting settled into my basement studio space at our new home. It’s a fine workspace for now, but this winter I’m planning to have the interior finished with drywall, electrical, new lighting, a work sink, a purple-painted concrete floor, etc!
My basement studio… awaiting interior finishing this winter!
With the galleries and boutique shops that carry my original abstract artcards closed for now, I’ve received several requests for them directly from my art fans. So, since my inventory is low, I’ve been ramping up production in my studio and want to show you a bit about how I make them.
David Castle original artcard (oil and metallic silver watercolor).
I started making original artcards a few years ago as a way for folks to keep in touch with family and friends “the old-fashioned way” – a hand-written note sent snail mail style right to their mailbox. And, the artcards are designed to be ready to pop into a favorite frame and added to the art collections of your family and friends. Or maybe they’ll be simply displayed in your kitchen as refrigerator art or in your office on an inspirational bulletin board. I think it’s a pretty versatile little piece of original art!
My most recent “batch” of mini abstracts starts as a larger painting on paper – typically 12 x 16 inches – in my layered oil and metallic watercolor style that I call my Pacific Rains Series.
Artcard original paintings… ready for varnish and the chopping block.
After a good week of drying/curing (the solid oil paints I use contain a wax component that allow them to dry quickly), they get a few coats of spray varnish to set the metallic watercolor layer and protect the painting from light damage.
Once the varnish layer has dried, I’m ready to cut the larger painting up into my mini abstract squares – each measuring 2.5 x 2.5 inches. I just use my artist’s eye to gauge where to make cuts so I end up with mini square abstracts that I like.
Finally, on some, I add a bit of acrylic paint to finish each abstract. Now they’re ready to glue-mount to blank cardstock. I use Italian-made Fabriano Medioevalis cards that I think present the abstracts nicely.
Mini abstract artcards… mounted, signed and ready to send.
I just popped this mini abstract into a fun, silver metal frame and love it! This’ll be a hint at another blog post to come about my mini abstracts that I mount for original artcards.
I haven’t been liking much of what I’m doing in my studio since the lockdown started nearly 2 weeks ago, but loved this mini so much that I just had to share today! And, the cool colors remind me of the now-closed Oregon coast beaches that I love so much.
I hope you’re all staying safe and healthy!
Mini David Castle Abstract (Oil and metallic silver watercolor)
It has really been too long since I’ve posted… but, over the holidays I did spend some good time in my studio going back to one of my old and favorite painting styles.
I occasionally feel the pull to go back to my roots of pure watercolor paintings after having spent the last few years exploring my mixture of oils and metallic watercolors. Fueled by this pull and the interest in submitting some work to the upcoming Western Federation of Watercolor Societies annual exhibit in Boise this year, I painted two watercolor abstracts in my “Elementals” style in December.
I rediscovered how a very steady hand is required for painting my Elementals! And how this is mainly achieved through lots of practice and patience, both of which I’ve been a bit out of while painting my oil abstracts. I consider my oil abstracts much more “gestural mark-making” while my Elementals are a more exacting and technical painting process.
“Three Autumn Trees”, watercolor on paper, 28 x 20 inches.
I painted two Elementals to submit to the Western Fed exhibit, one (above) in a more representational style of autumn trees and the second (below) in a more true abstract style. I submitted both, so we’ll see what response they get!
“Cliff Dwellings”, watercolor on paper, 20 x 20 inches.
David Castle Art 