“Untitled 13.” 60” x 60”.
Silkscreen, dyed paper, acrylic and resin on panel and aluminum.

“No More Pearls.” 24”x40”. Acrylic on canvas.

I fell three feet and into a puddle of grape-flavored Juicy Juice. Not too much juice, it was probably just from one carton. But this was no ordinary puddle; there was something different about it. I knew that because it told me. “Hey you! I’m no ordinary puddle!” it said.

In a profession where a graduate level degree qualifies you to cut paper and a fifty hour week is considered part-time, architect Eric Owen Moss is fairly easy-going without being easy. Ask a seemingly simple question of Moss, and you shall elicit an answer that draws on philosophy, symphonic composition, and a good-natured frontier sensibility. While Moss has won major competitions in China, Mexico, and Russia, and is currently designing the Patent Office Building of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington D.C., he is still something of a hometown secret. He lacks the studied grandeur of some of his more well-known contemporaries, but to good effect. Without that PR sheen, it’s possible to have an actual conversation with him, if actual conversations are defined as extended discussions about the construct of history.

Never mind the fact that he was born some 600 years too late, Leigh J. McCloskey is every bit a Renaissance Man. Not someone stuck in the past, but someone part of what he calls an “emerging Renaissance.” An accomplished actor, McCloskey may best be known for his role as Mitch Cooper from the TV series Dallas. Through Julliard, to a career in TV/film spanning nearly 4 decades, McCloskey’s acting resume would seem creative enough for two lifetimes. After spending a day with him in the Hieroglyph of the Human Soul, however, you’d soon realize that McCloskey is concerned with much more than just playing a part. Indeed, spending time IN the Hieroglyph of the Human Soul. Entering the artist’s home only to see the room devoted to this craft of mixed media, brushstroke, and imagination, it would be easy to dismiss the Heiroglyph as a floor-to-ceiling, corner-to-corner rendition of archetypes in acrylic paint. However, after a few moments dissolving into the splendor of a work like this, objectivity takes a back seat. Add 3-D glasses with well-executed storytelling, and objectivity gets thrown out altogether. I thought I had come to hold an interview, but within minutes I realized the standard Q & A would not suffice: “Unscrew the locks from the door! / Unscrew the doors themselves from the jambs!” to quote Whitman, and this rallying cry provides the necessary architecture to describe a person who may very well be the last of the cave painters.