Now here are some interesting shoes. Interesting for their colors and shapes but most interesting because they are a by-product of a process.

And here is who these shoes belong to, the Baltimore artist Greg Minah. Here he is in front of one of his abstract paintings at the opening of his current exhibit at Gallery Plan B in Washington, DC. Paint drips on Greg and in his work all the time.

This is Greg’s drip tester. Patterns and layers of color in his paintings are achieved through drip speed and therefore the drip tester is an important part of his studio.

Sometimes an artist’s studio becomes a work of art too. Another by-product.

This is the paintbrush Greg uses to mix paint. While the brush shortens as it’s bristles wear out, the handle grows a bulge through the accumulation of paint.

When Greg was a child growing up in Columbia, Maryland the ceiling in his bedroom became an early artistic influence:  All the ceilings in my childhood home had that raised, Spackle finish. I clearly remember just staring up at the ceiling and making connections between the abstract shapes and designs in the plaster. After I stared at the ceiling long enough, recognizable shapes and characters would start to emerge and I could entertain myself for a long time just looking for new patterns to emerge from the ceiling. In a way, this is exactly what I still do today with my paintings. The lines and forms in my work conjure up abstract associations with figures, landscapes, etc, sort of like cloud-gazing. And the more I look, the more I see.

a statement of faith, 2011

It’s always interesting to ask an artist who may have played a key role in their childhood to encourage their creativity. Here is what Greg had to say: I remember in elementary school there was a teacher who always asked me to make arts and crafts for her classroom (for example, national flags that she would laminate, or button designs that kids wore for different reasons) and this gave me a lot of confidence in my abilities as an artist. In middle school, I actually got in trouble with my art teacher because she found out that I was doing other children’s art homework for them in exchange for a couple quarters or maybe their dessert. She held me after class one day because all the homework drawings were clearly done by the same person. Even though I got in trouble, it still boosted my artistic ego. When I was in high school, after my teacher saw a doodle I was doing while waiting for class to start, he took me aside and asked me if I would agree to take art every year during high school. If he hadn’t done this, who knows if I would have kept up with it or not. Another similar thing happened in college. I was an English Literature major for the first 3 years and I enrolled in a studio drawing class to fulfill a requirement. One day, the teaching assistant in the class asked me what my major was and when I told her it was English she simply said, “Hmmm…I think it should be art.” And just that simple exchange led me to stay an extra year and finish both degrees.

we can recognize, 2009

I loved the cartoon “Calvin and Hobbes”. I had all the books. I enjoyed the style of the cartoon but also how imaginative the strips could be. The main character was continually imagining that he’s exploring another planet or that his babysitter was a child-eating monster, things like that. And, although I didn’t realize it at the time, I think that music played an important role in my creative upbringing, as well. My mother is a very musical person and was always playing the piano, the recorder, the guitar, singing, etc. Of course, as a kid, there were lots of times where I just felt sick of hearing so much music all the time but now I know that being exposed to so much music was invaluable. In fact, I often associate music with my paintings today. There is something lyrical about my paintings, I think… a certain flowing rhythm that’s present.

a plastic skepticism, 2011

Enjoy more of the lyrical beauty found in Greg’s paintings on his website, www.gregminah.com.