Where Poe & Ash Came From

Poe didn't begin with a story.

I've always enjoyed painting skulls, and at some point I thought it would be interesting to take one and give it a life—not just paint a skull as an object, but turn it into a character with a personality, interests and a world of his own.

That became Poe.

From the beginning, I saw some of myself in him. Not an exact version of me, but more like an alter ego—a character I could give some of my interests to and use to express different ideas. He's artsy. He likes some of the things I like. There are pieces of me in there, even if he has become very much his own character.

Ash came second.

Once Poe existed, the idea of giving him a companion felt natural. A black cat just seemed like the right friend for a skeleton. There wasn't a complicated reason behind it. It worked.

And that was really how the two of them began.

Letting the Painting Tell the Story

I didn't start out trying to build an entire world around Poe and Ash. I thought they could simply be interesting characters to paint.

What I liked was the possibility that a painting could suggest something without explaining everything.

Put Poe and Ash in a scene and the viewer starts filling in the blanks. Where are they? What were they doing before this? What's happening between them? What happens next?

I don't necessarily know all of those answers myself.

Sometimes I have a story in mind when I'm painting them. Most of the time, though, I'm thinking about making an interesting painting—composition, light, atmosphere, the things that make the image work as a piece of art.

The story can belong partly to whoever is looking at it.

A Painting First

As Poe and Ash have developed, we've started seeing more possibilities for them. There are similarities between us and the characters, although they're certainly not replicas of either of us. They borrow interesting attributes here and there and then become something of their own.

But one thing hasn't really changed.

I want the paintings to stand on their own as works of art.

If someone knows all about Poe and Ash and enjoys imagining their world, that's great. But I'd also like someone who knows absolutely nothing about them to see one of the paintings and simply think it's a cool concept and a strong piece of artwork.

That's where they came from, after all.

A painter who liked painting skulls thought it might be interesting to give one a life.

Then the skeleton needed a friend.

And somehow, there was Ash.