ou may be curious why anyone in his right mind would focus his modest resources, energy and attention on the subject of the painter's palette, an art icon so kitschy, so corny and so insipid, it defies description. Think about it. The composer can invent great music with pencil and paper. The writer can create masterpieces of literature, poetry and original stage/screen plays with pen and parchment. The dancer uses her/his body. On the other hand, the poor painter, satan bless his/her pathetic soul, is encumbered with paint, brushes, an easel, a maul stick, a paint box, palette knifes and a palette. Society treats some of these necessary tools with derision and contempt. The miraculous brain is the only thing artists, in the broad sense share, unless you believe the heart and a god have something to do with the creative process.

have joined a small team of concerned artists to transform the common palette from a subject of ridicule and disrespect, to a subject of ridicule and disrespect, no, I mean to a subject of admiration and respect, just like still-lifes, land/seascapes, figures, flowers, animals, other things and nothings.

he palettes in this show were used when I made nine monumental landscape paintings on canvas (unframed shapes of huge rocks with invented color, some 12 feet high) taken from “Devil’s Garden,” a unique rock formation 12 miles east of Escalante, Utah. I used different palettes for each painting, in the shapes of the paintings, which eventually became nine much smaller versions of the paintings, which were shown in two exhibitions at the source of the paintings - Devil’s Garden. There was a root beer and champagne reception for the first show, with Satan and 12 of his buddies attending.

A few of your favorite aphorisms:

• Satan is the father of science because he induced Eve to make Adam taste the fruit of knowledge.

• It is a fool’s part to argue with the Devil.

• God is good only because there is evil, and God is God, because there is a Devil.

• The Devil may be believed in a court of justice on his word and oath.

• The Devil is going to grab you by the throat at any moment and bring you down into the fiery pit.

• God is the creation of evil.

• The Devil made me do it.

• The Devil’s Artvocate