Moods

Project X
Oil, acrylic, pastel, pencil, wire, and cardboard on canvas
48in. x 30in.
©Copyright 2002 Jason J. Loya & Robyn T. Gorgos

This is a painting that has a very cool story behind it. A talented artist and a good friend of mine for the past twelve years, Robyn Gorgos, co-created this piece with me. He was living in San Diego at the time and I was here in L.A. He would usually come up to visit every month or so and we decided it would be a good idea for each of us to work on a canvas and exchange them the next time we got together. Robyn and I have different styles but many similar influences. Each time we got the chance to work on the piece, it had changed. It allowed us to gain a new perspective constantly. We had to add something to the piece and even shift the focus without taking anything away. It was a great challenge. In the end, the canvases had changed hands five or six times. One turned out great -- the other just never quite felt right. This is the one that we like.

This one is best read aloud.


a sqeek, a chirp, cccchurp chuurp churp, rp
anonsensicallineof - stop to dot - complicated ramblings
Squeak Squeak Squeak eek
a nonsensical - stop to dot - neverending - stop to dot --
Squeak Squeak Squeak
andsoandsoandso so.
I am trying to pay attention but
Squeek Scweek chirp
andsoandsoandso
She speaks and speaks and speaks
andsoandsoand

Send me away from wherever I came...
aname aname a name...

Breathe real hard and a sound comes out
Breathe and go out --
We need to find a place to live
We need to find our place and live!
a place a Place A Place...

and a small piece of lace.
squeaksqueaksqueak.

© copyright 1999 Jason J. Loya

Composition with Woman and Chair
oil on canvas
40" x 30"

This is an oil painting that I did in 2003 in honor of two of my greatest artistic influences. It is my own composition made from a combination of VanGogh's Chair with Pipe and Picasso's Femme Assise dans un Fauteuil Rouge (Woman in a Red Armchair). I created a collage out of pictures of the two great paintings and then copied the collage onto the canvas. I learned a lot by doing this piece: specifically, I had the opportunity to absorb the techniques of two great artists at the same time.

"Believe nothing...merely because you have been told
it...or because it is traditional, or because you
yourselves have imagined it. Do not believe what your
teacher tells you merely out of respect for the
teacher. But whatsoever, after due examination and
analysis, you find to be conductive to the good, the
benefit, the welfare of all beings -- that doctrine
believe and cling to, and take it as your guide." ~Buddha

This is a poem that I wrote some time in 1994. It followed a walk that I took on that same night.

I took a walk--
I don't know why,
To see the trees
Side by side:

They stood there staring or
Sleeping,
Not caring.

Two black shadows dark
But firm
Stood their ground or
Must have learned
That in the night by
Clouded moonlight
I'd come walking
To catch the sight
Of two dark lovers
Or swarthy brothers

Both there standing,
Each alone
But there together in place like stone.

Below my feet and beneath
The trunks of two great trees,
I saw a dark spot on the ground:
Black oil dark spot,
Small and round.

I could not wait by the phone all night,
So there I stood
On a dark spot
With none but these two trees in sight.
What they mean
Or why I am here but there,
I just can't say
But at these two silhouettes I'd stare.

Ask me not of
The oil spot or of
Birds in winter trees--
The ones that stood before me then
Were never full of leaves.

I had seen much more
Than I thought I'd seen
On any night before
And all that came to mind was:
Why?
Simply put,
To save some time,
Without the trees, the spot, the night,
I'd wait too long and never die.

So take the time to see dark trees,
It doesn't matter how--
For any better time to look
Or know
May as well be now.

© Copyright 1994 Jason J. Loya