Cliffside Symphony
Notes, Ramblings, and Ideas for Cliffside Symphony: Oceans Rushing Crescendo
This publication documents the creative journey behind the painting Cliffside Symphony: Oceans Rushing Crescendo. It's a collection of thoughts, inspirations, ideas, and ramblings gathered from my journals during the process—from December 31st, 2020 to June 24th, 2021.
Inception: Gathering Reference Materials
December 31, 2020 Acadia National Park and Reflecting on the Covid-19 Pandemic
What's it like to visit Acadia National Park in winter for New Year's? Bone-chillingly cold, eerily quiet, and hauntingly empty. The ocean's vibrant hues stand in stark contrast to the jagged stones lining the shore.
At the end of 2020, Catherine and I decided to visit Acadia National Park. We struggled to find a vacation spot amidst all the madness of the year. For me, the end of the year has always been a time of reflection and contemplation. During the sudden rise of the COVID-19 pandemic, all you could do was reflect on the uncertainty and frustration that everyone experienced in their own way.
I struggled to keep my day job, which grew more challenging and emotionally draining with each month we missed our targets. At the same time, I felt pressure to support Catherine through the immigration process and keep her safe while she waited for her work permit—another source of worry and panic.
We were living with my family—hunkered down with my Mom, Dad, Grandmother, three brothers, sister, and my brother Frank's friend Masa from Japan. Masa was stranded in the US, unable to return home from their boarding school. He became a reluctant yet honorary member of the family. With Catherine and me, that made 10 people total.
The experience wasn't bad or uncomfortable—my family is good people. The constant yelling is more out of necessity because we're generally all fat (speaking for the biological Majkowski/Vitanza folk), we stomp around, talk smack, and those who aren't find other ways to stir things up. We enjoyed great, lengthy dinners together, chatting and savoring Grandma's cooking and baked goods. Since my Grandma, Mom, and Dad were all cancer survivors with varying immune system strengths, COVID-19 demanded a level of caution that many others weren't experiencing. We played lots of games, and I carved out space in our basement for a small painting studio. We all eventually got sick, but our caution ultimately paid off. We were isolated, and that wasn't so bad.
In our town, people enjoyed being outdoors and walking.
It was a pleasant area near the ocean, so we generally saw people outside, and this didn't change much. The only noticeable difference was the routes people took. Instead of gathering near the water or parks, they now explored backroads and dead-end cul-de-sacs.
We saw people who usually kept to themselves coming outside. Others rented Airbnbs to escape the city's claustrophobia. We'd spot them on their phones, walking their pets.
I pondered deeply about what these people were discovering here. The conversation always centered on escape. But then what? You're here now, you've done it. The moment of respite is upon you. What are you doing with it?
I recall taking numerous walks during this time, contemplating and people-watching from a socially responsible distance.
When alone on these walks, my mind often raced. I describe it as a swelling sensation, the mind churning, filled with small realizations of things beyond your control. When it becomes overwhelming and frustrating, you remind yourself of a random quote, a moment, or something sobering. A small voice says,
"Okay, I need to move forward.
That's a beautiful tree there.
What can I control?
What's my first step?"
Then comes a moment of clarity where I can truly see what's in front of me, the walk's beauty no longer obscured by racing thoughts.
But soon, the swelling begins anew.
So here we are in Acadia, one of the most beautiful national parks in the US, visiting during a historically quiet season and an unprecedented lull in travel. Standing atop these cliffs, huddling behind rocks to escape the harsh winds, we were mesmerized. Peering down at the stones and dry, lifeless grass, we watched as freezing white water relentlessly crashed and retreated, revealing beautiful blue and green hues. The water being so cold and clear became glass like—only to be followed by another crash and a spray of icy, salty mist.
The sound and intensity shocked us out of our thoughts for a while. Yet it reminded me of how my mind worked—that swelling of thoughts that seems to wash away just as you take a deep breath or have a revelation. It felt like this.
I've chosen a challenging path for myself. I relish overcoming hardship and tackling difficult tasks. I find myself drifting away from those who seek an easy life or let things slide by. Instead, I deeply admire resilient people—those who repeatedly leap into the fire solely for the wisdom they'll gain.
Despite the pain, frustration, and anxiety I endured during this period of my life, I'm grateful to have emerged stronger. I want to capture that sensation in paint, to remind myself of those moments of respite on these cliffs. I want to paint it as I felt it.
New Years Eve 2021: Cooking by the fire
Pan-seared scallops and flame-cooked tortellini in cast iron. We had hoped to catch a glimpse of the Northern Lights. Though they eluded us, we spent hours in hefty sleeping bags in the back of my Jeep watching and mesmerized.
April 5, 2021 - Preliminary Sketch
In this initial sketch, I'm trying to capture the sensation of looking down and forward at the same time. Even though I'm peering down a cliff, the vast expanse of water and stones appears to loom directly in front of me. This flattens the image in an interesting way.
April 14, 2021
I'm enjoying the process of discovering and emphasizing these winding roots. I want viewers' eyes to be drawn into the image by these large, root-like structures—pushed around by massive forms converging from all directions toward the center. My goal is for the entire painting to embody a tumultuous internal energy, as though it were at odds with the energy of the ocean crashing through the stones toward the viewer. The direction and architecture of my paint forms express this movement.
Painting Begins: April 19, 2021
Today, I'm focusing on the middle-toned darks. My goal is to create a vibrant, colorful base that the larger forms will later temper and balance. The process of making a painting is very important to me. Typically, when someone sets out to create a painting, they take a single surface and build layer after layer—adding and rendering with various tools, brushes, or clever tricks—until it looks like what they wanted or they reach a point of resolution.
I firmly believe that the massive changes of 2020—when our communities were huddled inside and everyone was online—fundamentally changed the human experience. This time changed how people interact, earn their livelihood, find joy, handle loss, and where they go when they need to escape.
With everything coming from everywhere all at once, I observed an existence that depended on decision-making. Fast, articulate decision-making. A desire to take everything we know, lay it on the ground, organize and categorize it, and build it back together.
The painting process I developed is meant to be exactly that experience. In these studies, I let myself freely add colors and gestures and iterate with a kind of freedom.
April 24, 2021
I believe there is freedom in deliberation. This type of painting creates a kind of luxury where I can deliberate in a way similar to an artist who makes mosaics, carving the exact piece. Except in this case, I am able to sculpt paint into these kinds of forms—forms in their sculptural sense that have their own character and can embody a kind of gesture or "mark" similar to the character found in drawing.
I created these forms by essentially stealing moments from the studies above—preserving the integrity of their surface and, in a metaphorical sense, rebuilding a view of the world. This process creates a kind of separation from reality—the process of thinking so critically and freely that one loses oneself from reality, from what is in front of them—then piece by piece rebuilds a new world. But never losing sight of the individual pieces and how they relate to themselves.
In sculpting these forms, I'm aiming to unite multiple objects from the reference material. I'm generalizing the shapes of various shadows, rather than rendering individual stones. This approach allows me to later cut in with smaller forms, achieving the desired effect.
Warmer forms come forward while cooler ones recede, theoretically creating balance and depth.
I'm concerned about softness. As objects stack in the distance, their forms should become softer and blend into the light. I need to ensure these distant forms are less defined. I'm laying out my panels and organizing my composition, strategizing on the next steps and their timing.
April 26, 2021
This is my process. This approach—with its inherent limitations—feels like thought itself. I'm taking everything I know about the world and reassembling it for myself.
Each form becomes a decision point, a moment of consideration where I can choose how to represent what I see and feel. The limitations of working with discrete forms don't constrain me—they focus me. They force me to distill complex visual information into essential shapes, to decide what matters most in each moment.
April 29, 2021
There's something deeply human about this process of disassembly and reconstruction. It mirrors how we process experience itself—breaking down the overwhelming flood of sensory input into manageable pieces, then reconstructing meaning from those fragments. The painting becomes a map of my decision-making, a record of how I chose to see and interpret the world in that particular moment.
May 1, 2021
A brief pause. I'm savoring how the natural light streams in, embracing the surface of the painting.
This method creates a dialogue between control and spontaneity. While I'm making deliberate choices about each form, the interaction between forms—how they sit next to each other, overlap, or create new relationships—often surprises me. It's in these unexpected moments that the painting comes alive, when it stops being simply a reconstruction and becomes something new entirely.
May 3, 2021
Beautiful Spring Day to be in the studio
In this session—now that I've established a solid foundation—I need to be strategic about what comes next. I want to enhance and complement the forms I've laid down, but I must be careful not to become precious about any single element at the expense of the whole.
Some forms have interesting, sometimes surprising colors. These might emerge from the history of previous paintings on this support, or because I deliberately placed them there. If I'm drawn to a particular blue, I'll seek out a red or complementary color to accentuate it. Each decision shapes the final work.
One final shot before leaving.
May 7, 2021
May 11, 2021
Just a bit of admin work today before I can get busy. This is the reality of it all. I get the opportunity to perform at a day job and stare at my work—deliberating over the panels on the ground as I pace around on the phone. In the end, we hang up the call and get busy.
May 12, 2021
May 13, 2021
I'm settling into a great rhythm with this piece. The question now is where to go next. My instinct is to start at the top—the objects farthest from the viewer. I can make these forms smaller and more directional. Working this way, I'll have a better sense of scale when I reach the objects closer to the viewer. I'm also eager to work with the blues today.
I hope the music of these studies comes through. In making them, just focusing on an individual area that excites me in my reference material and expanding on it.
May 15, 2021
May 17, 2021
May 22, 2021: Trip to Portland Museum of Art
Just imagine if each of these confident brushstrokes were tiny microcosms.
May 23, 2021
May 26, 2021
May 31, 2021
June 2, 2021
June 10, 2021
June 12, 2021 - Final Touches
Just a few notes I had scribbled down in my chair after finishing:
I paint what I see.
During quarantine, I yearned to be outside—to escape the place where I was confined. When I finally ventured out, I was overwhelmed by the intense bursts of vibrancy in everything around me.
Each time I step outside, the world feels new. This vibrant sensation of novelty fades quickly as my attention shifts. If I force myself to linger in one place, I begin to sense the writhing of my thoughts—I feel pressure.
Webster defines pressure as "continuous physical force exerted on or against an object by something in contact with it."
A whole new world is being created where people gather, and the responsibility to engage with it constantly taps me on the shoulder.
Oil paint, my sole medium, has historically been used metaphorically by those who master the art of applying it in thin layers across surfaces to precisely describe and communicate what they see and feel.
I sculpt it into forms, constructing my vision of the world.
I've experienced that glow before—the "just finished a painting" glow—and it's exhilarating. While I'm uncertain about the complete accuracy of my earlier words, they felt genuine when I wrote them. Now, I can't bring myself to alter them.
