Bartending, Ten Years Later - Completed on 7/28/07

View the development of this painting

My first week in New York I realized very quickly I had no friends. In attempts to make friends in the city I thought becoming a bartender would be the best way. I took a class in Mixology and set out to work in a bar in Manhattan. Can you believe it was harder to get a job as a bartender than as a designer at a leading agency in Manhattan? After many bartender interviews I had this vision of a bartender painting. The bartender had 3 faces; when they knew what you wanted, didn't know what you wanted, and when you were pissing them off. I also saw that each bar had a similar crowd. The drunks, sleepers, up chuckers, and dancing women.

After ten years of drinking in bars around the world it dawned on me that this theory works for bars everywhere -- the Oktoberfest in Munich, Germany; Batizados in Aracaju, Brasil; San Fermin Festival in Pamplona, Spain; under the Aura Borealis in Reykjavik, Iceland; and many more. What separates them is their native language and drink of choice. This revised painting not only shows the expansion of the original idea but my progressive movement of my style.

See the original painting