My dog likes getting as much exercise and adventure as possible, and was teaching me the benefits of 'out.' She would take me for long walks in the surrounding alleys, visiting with other dogs jealously penned up in their yards, and finding plenty of interesting stuff to sniff.

I had spent a lot of years as, first, an antique dealer, and later a furniture finisher, so I had some knowledge of junk collecting, and painting. It wasn't long before I started paying attention to the stuff in and around the garbage cans I was passing. Some of the clothes looked like they would fit me, and still looked pretty good, and there were old tools, household items ... all sorts of stuff. I began picking up things and bringing them home.

One day I brought home an old, damaged oil painting I found, thinking at first that it might have value. Another time, not far from my house, I found a bunch of old artist paints in the trash, and later, some brushes. Previously, I had tried my hand at painting once or twice, and remembered, somewhere down in the basement, there were other brushes and tubes of paint, maybe some of it was still good ... maybe I would try making a painting.

Then, just across the street from my house, they began to renovate an old apartment building, and in the trash they carried out of the basement and dumped, I began finding all sorts of very old artist's materials, dozens of old canvases, stretchers, frames, easels, more stuff than I could fit in my basement.

I bought a big tub of that bargain acrylic gesso, and got to work, completely without a clue. My first few canvases, it did not occur to me to paint on the backs, so I tried sanding down the existing paintings, and then applying several coats of acrylic gesso, until I had a smooth surface. I was peripherally aware that applying acrylic over what might possibly be oil paint might not be a good idea, but figured that the scoring from the sandpaper, and the fact that the paint was many years old, might be enough to make it work. To my credit, so far none of these early canvases have failed ... yet. They may have been acrylic or oil. To be 100% honest, I still do not know how to ascertain for certain which is which just by looking, and neither do I know any other method for determining what the old paint is.

After doing this on about six canvases, I found out that it was less work to undo the nails or staples, and flip the canvas over on the stretcher, or remount it on a smaller stretcher if it was damaged, or had to be cut off its mount. Some have also wound up being glued down to plywood and hardboard as well, if the painted surface was absorbent enough to accept glue, after it was scored. So far, none of these early experiments have failed, but it has only been four years, now. Although I now work with new canvas (mostly scrap pieces), I have continued to find and use old canvas; the example here, 'Ravine Trees,' was painted last month. [Ed.: ca. Sept. 2000.]

I pay a lot more attention to the technical considerations now than I did when I began. I make sure that the original painting was put down on a good acrylic gesso background. Although I now work on new canvas with a hide or rabbitskin glue base, and then apply oil primer (in addition to still using only acrylic gesso under some paintings as well), I use only acrylic gesso on these old canvases, and work only on the backs, never overpainting an old picture, except where I painted the picture, and know for certain what I am dealing with. I have never, to my knowledge, worked over or painted on the back of a canvas that was treated with animal glue and lead or priming white. The stuff I find in the trash is almost always acrylic gesso, and the kind that was purchased already mounted and ready to use. This is the amateur's choice, and hence, what winds up becoming trash. I check the backs, and if there is any sign of deterioration, or any bleed-through, which would indicate an oil paint being applied to an insufficiently sealed ground, I just toss the canvas.

I started painting this way because I couldn't afford to pay for canvas. After I had sold a few paintings, and had a little money, I found a store that sells only canvas, mostly to sail makers and awning companies and the like, but they also sell 'artist-grade canvas.' I don't know what that means, specifically, because people attach all sorts of names to things, that don't necessarily mean what they say. This place is very inexpensive by comparison with the art supply stores, and by buying their scrap pieces, I am able to buy clean new canvas at about 25% of retail price. I did not, as mentioned in the previous paragraph, stop using old canvases, and expect that I will continue to use them in the future, but not for the same reasons that I started using them.

Then ... why?

Some person painted a picture, something really ugly, pathetic, a real dog. I'm not finding works of art in the trash, and if I found anything that might be even remotely valuable, I would check it out first, as it would be worth a lot more to me as a painting than it would be as a piece of canvas, even if it was in a style I detested. Someone made an attempt at something, and no matter how dreadful the results, I respect the effort. I also find something honest in this kind of work, winding up as it did, in the trashcan instead of some phoney 'art' gallery, with all sorts of pretentions about its being a 'rare and important' piece of work, with an outrageous price on the wall next to it. Besides, the alley is my place, and I am comfortable there, more comfortable than I am on a lot of streets, and a whole lot more comfortable than I will ever be around the dealers and the curators and, for that matter, the artists, too. I am not of their ilk, and never did fit in with that scene, and gave up even wanting to some time back. I am happy just working, and selling enough to live, and continue my work. I can learn something from a painting found in the trash, my mind can open up to it, I understand fully how it feels to want to paint, and lack the confidence to follow through.

Yes ... but is it art?

Don't ask me, I just make this stuff.

For many years, I painted and finished furniture. I loved the work, but there was one thing about the job that I did not love. Many of the people I worked for can only be described as 'Ugly Americans.' They had plenty of money, and all of the arrogance that that money could buy. They demanded perfection (which does not exist) and a lot of other things that didn't make a great deal of sense. But I was working for them, and I was an excellent finisher, and so I did what was required of me, in order that they might pay me.

Now I work for myself, and the standards that I set for my work are of the highest possible level, but they are not goofy and arbitrary standards, set by some individual who is ignorant of what this work that I pursue is really all about. They are standards set by me, who knows very well what I am up to, and which is the best possible way of achieving that end at the moment. There will be a lot of people who will not buy my work, who will turn up their collective noses at the notion of possibly buying a painting that was done on the back of someone else's canvas, and was sitting in the garbage, with the rotting food, out in the rain, with all the rats and cockroaches and other vermin walking and crawling and scurrying and defecating on it before it came home with me, to be painted again. It gives me great satisfaction, knowing that they will not have my work.