Several sketches were made of Kerry from a modeling session at Juxtaom Gallery. She wanted to be painted with a dragon as part of her fantasy dream. The painting of "The Angel of Juxtaom" came from the same modeling session.

   "Sam Smith" who owned Chelsea's Pub, wanted me to paint Emily, his favorite bar maid as his bar-room angel. Unfortunately Sam died before the painting was finished. Sam and his brother Lou, played music for decades all over the world.  He was a good friend and helped my son with his first Jazz band. In tribute to Sam, I wanted to incorporate his trumpet into the finished painting of "The Angel of Chelsea", but all I could find was this old bugle.  The painting of "Sam Smith" ( shown above )  was made for me and my studio so I could remember our friendship.  When I finished it, we showed it to his daughter Molly. She loved it so much she became emotional and started to cry.  We let her take it home for a while until we could find someone to professionally photograph it, then I would give her a print. I really wanted to keep the painting for myself.

  The original sketch for "I Caught a Fleeting Glimpse" was a nude study. As the painting progressed, a sheer drapery gown was added, as well as the little Gold Finch flying beside her.

   There is an energy in every thing! The Animistic believe this to be the spirit or soul. As with all energy, there is a positive and a negative, and you can't have one without the other. We all have our good and bad...even our angels and demons.

    A patron found a large antique painting in an art auction. It was a semi-nude lady riding on a crescent moon with a small cherub by her side.  He showed me a photograph and wanted to have a hand painted copy of the original.  I do not copy other artist's original paintings. A week later I met Amber, a new model, that looked almost exactly like the face and figure in the painting. I was inspired to create this similar composition; "Magic in the Moonlight".

   The first time I saw Twin Falls was in a water color by William McNamara, a friend and great artist. When I went there to photograph and sketch, there were a lot of other people enjoying the falls. I just wanted to paint a beautiful place in nature with out people in it. Then it started to rain and they all went away. It is a mystical place, but requires quite a hike to get there and back. I finished the painting in my studio.

   This is a Fantasy Painting of two young girls from Texas that are sisters. Their mother commis-sioned me to do their portraits as little fairies.  It was a delightful modeling session at the studio by the lake. I hope to do several more paintings from that same modeling session, as they were really great models and a lot of fun to work with. Their grandmother was a wonderful friend and I did several special drawings and paintings for her.

   My daughter, Allison, discovered this young model, Katie Crawford.  We were in Eureka at a friends store and gallery. Katie was trying on this chain mail head dress and Allison thought she would make a great model for a new painting.  She was right !

   We did the modeling session in the lake by the studio. It almost caused two bass boats to collide and wreck, as the fishermen wanted to get a better look at what was going on.

   Allison wanted me to entitle the finished painting as "Eitak Drofwarc", Katie's name spelled backwards, so it would have more Gaelic or Celtic sound.

   There is a magical place near Eureka, called Hog Scald Hollow. Its a favorite place to go skinny dipping on a hot summer day.

   I talked two friends, Lyle and Brooke, into modeling. I was working on sketches of Pan playing his pipe, while a young siren Mermaid tried to seduce him with her song. They were perfect !

   Brooke is dancing and playing in the water.

   Have you ever wondered where Mermaids come from?

   My apprentice Lori, found this young family that wanted to model.  I showed them my original design sketches and we went to Lake Leather wood to do the modeling session in the water.

   So now we have the father ( you can't actually see his fish tail ), the mother ( breast feeding her baby ) and of course the little Mer-baby was the star of the show !

   Now you know where Mermaids come from !

   This is a small sketch that a friend of mine, Erwin made of "Bacchus" the God of Wine.  Erwin gave me the sketch from his "Weird Harold" as Bacchus with his Ripple Wine, passed out in an alley in New York City.

   I was so impressed I couldn't help but to paint Erwin as "Bacchus" himself. My daughter and a couple of her friends were going to act and model as his temptresses but they could never get their act together...so I liberated some appropriate images from a couple of J. W. Waterhouse paintings and reworked them.

   Many years ago I saw a collection of old English wood cut prints. It was the complete alphabet from "A" though "Z". They consisted of semi-nude figures entwined in vines.  I can't remember the artist name or date...but I think it was somewhere in the 1700's.

   Give me another hundred years and I will complete this series.

   I did this painting first, because I wanted to show in the letter "X", and how we all become entwined in our emotions.  We can easily crucify ourselves from the things we love most.  Lady X loves her rose garden and it eventually. . . well . . . you make up the rest of the story for yourself.

  Its the old red headed

  stranger, "Willie Nelson"

"Willie in Concert - 2005"

Original Oil on Canvas

22" x 32"

Price: $15,000.00

Limited Edition of 100 Prints

Image Size: 16" x 23.27"

Price: $300.00 each

   I really love this old legend. Willie and his music have always been an inspiration to me.

Now for something a little more ...Sur-Realistic...

   "Immersed in my own dreams where nothing real or imagined really matters...the only things I have left are memories and feelings of the past, present and future where everything is surreal and time and space are only illusions".

   In some legends and myths, when a wild bird flies up and lets you pick it up, it is a baptism of nature that connects you to the natural universe. This brings you a message that some times is instantly understood within your soul...and other times it is never revealed in your lifetime.

   A jeweler and gemologist who was nicknamed "Wolf", for the timber wolves he befriended and raised, loaned me a book about Gemstones.  I was looking for inspiration and images that I could incorporate with my art work. Casey is one of my daughters friends that wanted to model for a painting. She saw the book and liked the picture of the Blue Chalcedony stone. Casey imagined she was becoming 'one with the stone' and looking through it as if in a dream.

Inspired by M. C. Escher's famous lithograph print "Drawing Hands"...

and a glass or two of wine...James Yale and Carol Peacock came up with the idea of painting each other in their own unique styles on the same canvas.  Something like a tribute to Escher on acid.

   This is a sketch of Lori, in 1999. She was an apprentice in my studio and a great help. I wanted to try something multi-dimensional and show multiple personalities to provoke complex thought through simple overlaying forms and color.

    A client came to my studio and asked me to do a painting of Doctor Benjamin Spock. He wanted something to portray Spock's views on Anti-nuclear issues as well as his concerns of women's rights and child raising. At the time Doctor Spock was living just a few miles away on Beaver Shores near Rogers AR. A mutual friend introduced us and Doctor Spock agreed to the project of having this painting made. He modeled for a lot of photos I took of him and I presented him with several sketches of what the finished project would look like as well as a nice conte' sketch study that was used as his portrait. Ben used the painting as an illustration for an article he wrote in 1980 for a major national magazine.

- The Story -

Dream of the Luna Moth

   In a dream - not to long ago - She lay sleeping not knowing where to go. Wanting deep inside to leave her body and fly away.  She's taken pills she did confide, not knowing if she'll see another day.  Hallucinations fill her mind.  She travels back and forth in time... A caterpillar, she does find...  Her transformation so sublime.  Dreams and realities come undone. She becomes an illusion of her mind as she dreams, her cocoon is spun leaving one world and entering the next...Not realizing the cost or expense.  Her world turns dark transfixed...Wrapped in her thoughts that make no sense wanting to fly...not knowing why.  To painful to live...To afraid to die...

   Awakening from a long sleep deep within the safety of her cocoon. she has morphosized and grown.  No longer will her protective shield hold her to the swaying limbs With roots in ground so far below.  Slowly she emerges, her world turned upside down. Eyes open to a new days light.  Her body wrapped in gossamer wings...wet and clinging to her silken skin. Fragile wings.not yet unfolded, or tested by the wind. Silent voices from deep within her past.  She could fall to her death before her new life begins.  Soon her transformation will be complete she will spread her wings and fly away. Life ever changing - she will not go back inside her cocoon. A whole new world unfolds.  Where will she go - as she glides along the wind.  We will never know - If you love someone sometimes you have to let them go -

   An empty bottle of pills by her side. She placed herself out on a limb.  She has inflated wings... waiting for the them to dry in the sun.  She's started to remember all of her emotions that came undone.  Reality is an illusion...with only perceptions...of what we are, what we think, and what we have become.  Not knowing if she is her old self or her new creation...Her only constant, is change, and the contradiction of the sum. Pheromones, naturally released attract her mate by noon day sun.  So innocent and shy...her purpose has begun not remembering her internet education of the Luna Moth and it's fate.  She will no longer eat or drink...she will only wait and after she has combined with his energy and deposited her eggs... then...she will fly away!  As she lies sleeping and her dreams do unfold the end of this life cycle. She spreads her wings and flies to the distant light of the full moon...in her mind's visual cortex. She lies sleeping never to see the next sunrise.

   Good-bye Luna Moth...My love for you...lives in our memories and dreams...as you lightly touch down and turn to dust upon the ground ~

                         - James Yale

                                   2001

"Mermaid Swims with the Dolphins"

Original Water Color on heavy weight water color paper

23 1/2" x 15 1/2"

Price: $3500.00

No Limited Edition Prints have been made

- Copy on bottom of Picture -

   "In the early dawn fishermen watched the Dolphins return to the sea. Was it a glimpse through the glistening waters...they saw their dreams fade away?"

                           - James Yale

                                    1991

"Cosmic Aura"

Original Oil on Canvas

9" x 12"

- Collection of the Artist -

©

All Artwork and Text

Copyrighted 2015

by James Yale

- All Rights Reserved -