Floor is Lava: inside the studio (& my head)

Warning: I explain more about the interior of where this originated than I should; I seriously considered burning both this blog post and the painting.

Title: The Floor Is Lava

The title comes from a game I played as a kid in various living rooms in the 1970s and 80s during birthdays and sleepovers. It became a television show by the same name a few years ago.

Music: A soundtrack of yacht rock and '80s alt hits on Amazon Music was rocking the studio while I painted this. I specifically recall listening to The Psychedelic Furs and Christopher Cross, and the anthem. Wild Boys, by Duran Duran https://music.amazon.com/albums/B00NFAMYNI?do=play&trackAsin=B00NFANCLQ&ts=1787098364&ref=dm_sh_TP6iOhoPgvgOYNDsFmKHwSIEC

Process: I didn’t plan this piece. I applied a red that in an oval, repeating a form that conjured a vibe of a carpet, and it immediately unlocked memories of the large rope area rugs that were ubiquitous in my friends’ homes growing up. The resulting time travel felt like what I imagine taking acid would be like.

For a winter afternoon in 2026, I was 12 years old again, hanging out with my best friends, John D. and Mickey. We were making up games, riding bikes, organizing pickup street hockey (between “goals” of borrowed garbage cans) and touch football (telephone pole to telephone pole) after school, and living with 99% unbridled energy and a looming 1% unspoken dread over growing up. I was back in the summer of 1982, playing knee tackle football in our socks and games like "the floor is lava," reeking of Bubble Yum, chlorine, and running all day.

The hazy scene I excavated is blurred by age and movement; it captures the emotional residue of both the fun of boyhood friendship and the uninvited changes (mostly inevitable, predictable, and correct) that would eventually tear it all away—lurking just outside that picture window in the blackness.

Palette: Searing red flooring, lamp black leering through the window, a contrasting green to provide a safe haven to leap to, and a cool blue couch to aim for.

Before the challenge of MS, the joys of fatherhood, and a rightful understanding of how much the pieces fit the wonderful mosaic that is our own lives. Man, I am so blessed!

Contextual photographs, and early shots from the easel.

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