At the tail end of a busy winter painting season, I managed to finished up a few paintings and drawings including this conceptual one I call Distance. It was something I've had in my head for a long time, inspired by a Calvin and Hobbes strip. In it, Calvin brings a plane to show and tell to emphasize how much distance he will soon be putting between himself and classmates he doesn't like. I thought a traffic jam would be an obvious symbol representative of a place someone might want to escape from. Really, the underlying idea is more important though, that distance is a strong emotional state of mind, whether it's wanting to put distance between something, or wanting to close the distance and get somewhere faster.

A large painting at over four feet tall, Distance was built up in several layers of mostly acrylic. First a full fill of random notations and lists, followed by a monochromatic traffic scene. Then, on top of that, the hand and plane in a linear style, meeting up with the typographic message.