Sitting down to paint, I take a moment to gather my thoughts and sort out my supplies. Buckets of colors lay still on my tables and sometimes partially dried from projects two or three years ago. Benjamin Moore’s “Vale Mist” reminds me of a Southampton job, where my wife and I worked together in a beautiful home decorative painting walls in crosshatches and brushed venetian plaster. We spent 2 weeks there. And over to the right, a bucket of island hues, from color washes and faux bois samples sent to Antigua, where myself, 5 other Americans and 3 Antiguans, spent several weeks bringing a coastal home to life. We shared meals, exchanged stories and made friends for life.

For each project, thoughtfully selected color, every mark, movement after movement carefully composed, all decisions being controlled from head to hand. The daily grind if you will. It’s tedious and sometimes monotonous. It’s in this that I find even more beauty in the things uncreated. The happenstance of a composition or a color palette. And I think to myself, “This is beautiful. I need to share this.”

Over 18 years of decorative painting, the plastic mixing buckets that served as vehicles for hand made beauty, were also vehicles for the happenstance. I discovered that the layers of dried paints emerging over time began a process so simple, yet gratifying. Somewhere around 9 years ago, I began peeling this paint to make room for more creation from these buckets. And what I pulled from the edges of the smooth plastic were compositions and color combinations that were never consciously made. I saved them. And I keep on saving them.

In 2019, I contacted a photographer friend of mine who I knew would understand the concept of photographing the beauty of these sometimes odd shaped, cracked and imperfect pieces of discard. We played around with digital and film and this selection of oversize prints is a perfected package of these captured paintings.