The ‘still life’ has been around for hundreds of years. The “Vanitas” that includes a skull, has been here since the 16th century as a way to illustrate one of the seven deadly sins. I’m lucky to have several collected skulls from the Cascade Range, gifts from my brother. Typically the ‘still life’ is nothing more than groupings of objects piled up in flat and bunched planes of collected treasures that can express ideals outside this visual mass. These drawn and painted collections can convey joy, love, sadness, whimsy, politics, anger, humor and aspects of class distinction. For me, these dipping and whirling opportunities of still life arrangements provide the perfect format for composition, textures, light and varying aspects of color among other things. I’ve been collecting odd bits of stuff my whole life and I keep them in a series of storage boxes and rearrange them for each new artwork. I organize them into clusters amid trails and clearings as though viewing a landscape. After studying traditional still life arrangements from the wreckage of Pompeii through the history of art and all of the way to the magnificent works of Giorgio Morandi, I have found many ways to visually express myself with these prints.
Mick Sheldon 