Philip Koch Paintings

Winslow Homer, Summer Squall, oil I've posted before that Winslow Homer was the first painter I noticed as a little kid. My folks had a nice print of one of his watercolors hanging over the couch. Funny how these things stick with you. Often I wonder about the vividness of childhood. Lots of things delighted me as a kid, but I can also recall being shy, and frightened too. Often I had a sense of awe in the face of what seemed a very big world. Homer painted lot of pictures that looked just like where I grew up- rocky shores and big waves. As a kid I loved the big storms that would sweep down from Canada and bash the shoreline of my home on Lake Ontario just outside Rochester. I think Homer was well in touch with his inner thrill seeking kid too, based on a painting like the one above. One of the reasons Homer affects so many viewers is his masterful sense of space. Take this painting. That little boat with its sail blowing loose is really out there in a different world than we s...

This is my friend Lori Sappinton. Every Saturday morning I drive to a gym on the other side of town to take her Body Jam class. In her "normal" life Lori teaches elementary school and there I'm sure she's the very picture of decorum. In Body Jam it's a whole different story- loud, fast, sweaty, and a hell of a lot of fun. It is a choreographed group dance class, a mix of hip hop, salsa, and god knows what else. Lori dons spandex and microphone and calls out the moves to about 40 people, demonstrating all the while up on a spotlighted stage. A small woman and slightly built, I have no doubt her muscled legs could kick anyone's head off should she feel it necessary. Lori Sappington She also is incredibly graceful, part natural talent and part years of dance training when she was young. I wasn't like that. As a boy I would have been laughed out of town had I ventured to take serious dance lessons. More than that I just wasn't comfortable enough in my ow...

We all have (or had) parents. They gave us life and a heck of a lot of other things. My wife Alice the therapist likes to point out that one of their gifts to us is to fail us. Had our parents been able to meet all our needs, not one of us would have been emotionally able to leave the nest. And there are important things that would have stayed unlearned had we never left home. Artists need a wealth of different talents. The ones usually checked off on everyone's list include an ability to draw, an eye for color, and a fabulous imagination. I'd like to proffer one additional talent- the ability to find heroes. I could have said teachers, but I mean something more than that. Sometimes we encounter the work of another artist that just pulls some hidden internal switch in us. You see their work and you feel a floodlight has been switched on revealing new terrain you just have to explore. For me, my first mega art-hero was an American landscape painter John Frederick Kensett (181...

The Birches of Maine , pastel, 10 x 8", 2008  I have a confession- I am a gym rat. Most days likely find me at the gym for an hour. Today was my friend Kim teaching Body Flow. For the uninitiated, it's sort of a combination of Yoga-lite and Tai Chi done in a darkly lit room to music. Kim, frighteningly buff, performs a choreographed series of moves to music from a spotlighted stage. The rest of the class follows her moves as best we can. It is hard as hell. Surprisingly it is also very beautiful. One moves slowly from one bending or twisting pose to another while trying your best not to topple over. And you push each move just a bit to make the gestures crisp, flowing, and the extensions of the limbs sharp and stated.  As the class progresses, your senses gradually wake up. Balance, gravity, and forceful yet delicate movement become amazingly tangible. It reminds me ever so much of what I do when I'm painting- making clear, stated gestures with the hand that holds the brus...