I found Dolan Geiman, or rather he found me, via Twitter last winter. I checked out his online portfolio and it was love at first site… get it? Web site! Ok, moving on. Anyway, I totally fell in love with Dolan’s folksy/urban work. Salvaged wood, found objects, and quite a few birds {painted ones, not real ones} all lovingly combined to create mixed media pieces that were true soul-crushers! I’ve written about him at least three times, and I’m sure I will again. I was thrilled when he agreed to pop in for the weekend, but was quite surprised by the work he chose to write about. It’s fantastic, but so completely different than his own… hmm, perhaps that’s why he’s jealous:

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I am jealous of Leo Charre

Leo Charre stepped into my life draped in black, smoking a cigarette with his skinny grinning (then) bride at his side, and masquerading as the puppeteer looking for his puppets. I was selling art on the street and, three days later, the couple moved into my abandoned warehouse with me and taught me how to smoke used cigarettes and how to paint (how to really paint) and also the importance of drinking a glass of wine while watching the moon relax into a nest of tree limbs.  Leo was the first painter I met who made me feel awkward and foolish and downright unlearned.  He would quiz me on various artists I should know, and he would watch as I fumbled through oil paint, finally giving up and retreating back to my acrylics to let the master take over. He worked tirelessly for months on one painting while I knocked out hundreds. One day he dragged in a piece of plywood and sanded it down and left it sitting like a new born baby in the middle of the warehouse.  I couldn’t resist, so I dove in and created my first real painting on wood.  He was irate at the time that I had stolen his wood, but it was the break I needed and two days later I sold the painting and we used to money to by some really nice wine.  We lived and worked for months for the sake of art. We rarely ate, smoked a lot, drank a little, but mostly made art all day and then dragged ourselves out to the street to hawk our wares. When Leo’s marriage was on the fritz, we parted ways. Those were sad days. I didn’t know how to move forward.  I moved to Chicago in search of something new and found it. Leo weaved in and out of my life for a few years then disappeared.  As an artist, I have always been jealous of his abilities. He is a master of paint, nothing less.  I can only hope that in time I will get to be in his midst once more and that some of the genius might rub off on me.  And this time maybe it will stick.

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I think it stuck the first time around… it just happened to stick to a piece of wood instead of to canvas! Thanks so much for sharing this Dolan. Keep us posted on what happens next, please! This is a great story… and I want to know how it ends ; )