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 Still Life is a contradiction in terms. Nature is kinetic , overflowing with living designs. By mimesis and imagination the artist participates organically in this ongoing creation.
Making art is a journey of discovery, an exhilarating treasure hunt. My paintings aspire to serve as humble pieces in the Great Puzzle, and to provide a modicum of comfort and happiness.
During 2007-8, my paintings appeared in a number of exhibits: at Worthington's HIGH ROAD GALLERY; the JungHaus (Columbus, Ohio); Columbus's First Unitarian Unitarian Church; the Dublin, Ohio, Art Fair; the Worthington First Methodist Church; the Arlington, Ohio, First Community Church; the Grove City, Ohio, Municipal building; and The Ohio State University's Northwood ArtSpace ("The Pet Show," July12-August 31, 2007).
"Blue Eyes" won Honorable Mention at the High Road Gallery show "The Bare Essentials, Studies in the Human Form," October 3-27, sponsored by the Worthington Area Art League (WAAL).
"Park of Roses," PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD Spring Anthem Exhibit
"Lost in Iceland" and "Saffron Robe," OHIO STATE FAIR, July 30-August 10, 2008.
Solo Exhibits 2007-8:
1. "WINTER DREAMS," November 13, 2007-January 14, 2008, Worthington Community Center, sponsored by the WORTHINGTON ARTS COUNCIL.
2. "BURNING BRIGHT," Market Mortgage, Worthington, Ohio, February, 2008, sponsored by WAAL.
3. "SPRING FORWARD," Northwood ArtSpace, The Ohio State University, April 3-June 1, 2008.
4. "SUMMERTIME," The Ohio State University FACULTY CLUB, June 9-August 31, 2008.
5. "ARE WE THERE YET?" Gurnsey Bank, Worthington, July, 2008, sponsored by WAAL.
SOLO EXHIBITS 2009:
1. "ALL TOGETHER NOW," May 19-June 29, 2009," Worthington Municipal Center, sponsored by The Worthington Arts Council's Visual Arts Committee.
2. GALLERY SHOW: "CONVERGENCE," June-September, 2009, EUROPEAN PAPERS, Columbus, Ohio.
3. "NO COMFORT ZONE," Market Mortgage of Worthington, 330 E. Wilson Bridge Rd., Worthington, Ohio--Nov. 2009-April 2010
"Moon Rock" and "Out and About" provide the cover art for the books DEATH OF A FRIEND
(2007) and ACCIDENTAL ETHNOGRAPHY (2008), published by LEFT COAST PRESS (LCoastpress.com).
CLICK HERE: SKELETON KEY to the SUICIDE of MY FATHER ROSS LOCKRIDGE Jr. AUTHOR of RAINTREE COUNTY
FIRST PLACE, "Double Take" Exhibit at The High Road Gallery, Worthington, Ohio--July 4, 2010. "Real,
actual, contrasting the ideal aspirations of advertising with the truth of the street. Honest photo." Judge: Emeritus
Professor Tom Hubbard, The Ohio State University School of Journalism and Communications.
THE BIG WHEEL ROLLS TO THE FINAL STOP, END OF THE LINE, THE DREAM'S DRY BOSOM, THE SAFETY NET, THE LAST CALL: "IT'S FOR YOU." E.L. FIRST
PLACE, Fall Exhibit, High Road Gallery, 12 E. Stafford, Worthington, Ohio, through Nov. 21, 2009. "A tribute to
painting. The bold and deliberate use of texture and shape forms an unusual 'scape.' This painting, deriving its
title from a James Baldwin book, is textural--with a large T, and becomes a tribute to brush work, to painting. As a
judge I look to find technical prowess combined with uniqueness. This painting presents originality and daring yet it
is grounded in painterly skill."
"And God gave Moses the rainbow sign: No more water, the fire next time." (Old
Spiritual)
"A gorgeous canvas . . . painted in Georgia O Keefe country in New Mexico, and in it masterful gradations of reds, oranges, browns, form a blizzard of tree foliage that nearly covers the side of a non descript ranch house. The colors . . . are on fire, smouldering." Liz James ArtScene
These magnificent Icelandic
ponies were jammed together in a tiny corral at the edge of Gullfoss (Golden Falls) in Iceland. "The strangely
elided and juxtaposed shapes of two big horses stand flank by flank, nearly fill the canvas, and create a study in design
and color that is baffling.--As I recall, a splat of midnight sun, or perhaps a day time moon--is visible here. And
iconic white aurioles, sun-like splats, glimmer in other of Lockridge's paintings.--But you have to look. The aesthetics
of design and abstraction are present in LOST IN ICELAND. Yet, the large truncated shapes of the two horses suggest
something primitive and one cannot help but think of pre Norse myths and legends." Liz James ArtScene
This spring we took our two granddaughters to Blendon Woods in Worthington, and fed and bathed
Monarchs at the Ranger Station. As I was liberating one of these intricate animals on its pre-ordained voyage to sail
the sea of gold to Ayomel, I experienced one of William James's "Oceanic" moments.
CLICK HERE: MONARCHY: PORTRAITS OF NATURE'S ROYALTY by ERNEST LOCKRIDGE
CLICK HERE: "WILD WOMEN"--NUDES BY ERNEST LOCKRIDGE
I wanted to imagine the world that the woman, herself, is imagining.
Penelope weaves a bright tapestry to keep her savage suitors at bay. They're still
here, however, a throng of them alive and well, and in a state of watchful waiting.
"Lockridge's chosen modus, wisely, tends toward the maxim that 'less is more' . . . [This]
foray into grids and pure abstraction is striking yet understated." ArtScene
"PARK OF ROSES" (below) received the PEOPLE'S CHOICE AWARD, 2008 SPRING ANTHEM EXHIBIT, sponsored by the Worthington Area Art League:
POWER TO THE PEOPLE!
Those undercover eyes are taking our measure.
Please click on link to Simon&Schuster 
As I contemplated waves and ripples Proteus emerged onto the canvas. Wordsworth writes:
"Great God, I'd rather be/A Pagan, suckled in a creed outworn:/So might I, standing on this pleasant lea,/Have visions
that would make me less forlorn;/Have sight of Proteus rising from the sea,/Or hear old Triton blow his wreathed horn."
Proteus, the shape-shifter of Greek mythology, can take any form--whale, snake, eagle, tortoise. Capture Proteus, however,
compress him back to his true shape and ask him for directions, Proteus assumes the role of Cosmic OnStar, telling you where
to go (!) and how to reach your destination.
CLICK HERE: THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH, March 19, 2009
This painting comes from an overwhelming need to explore a world of pink, violet, amethyst and
gold.
"The hues of SEDONA DUSK emit lavender-sagebrush-deep purple-fragrances--if you can see fragrances!"
Artscene "SEDONA DUSK enhances the mystical, magnetic
effects of this spiritual location through complex monochromatic pigmentation. The viewer receives information, sensation
and light through the artist's energetic brush work." Elizabeth Chrisman, Judge, "Arts Alive in Technicolor,"Worthington
Area Art League Spring Show, March 2010, High Road Gallery, Worthington, Ohio
Note also: My father Ross Lockridge Jr.s great American novel RAINTREE COUNTY--the cry of a mortally wounded spirit--has just been reissued by the Chicago Review Press. RAINTREE COUNTY was the favorite novel of Jim Morrison of THE DOORS.
CLICK HERE: "GRANDSON OF PALEFACE, SEDONA," from TRAVELS WITH ERNEST Why did my father Ross Lockridge Jr. commit suicide March 6, 1948, while RAINTREE COUNTY was America's Number One Bestseller? The two biographies of Dad--an envy-driven hatchet-job with kid gloves, and a tedious shaggy-dog story--proffer solutions worthy of Doctor Watson or Colonel Hastings; the Freudian quackery of both biographies is quintessential Sid Caesar. But in TRAVELS WITH ERNEST I unlock the riddle of Raintree County. I could dwell upon the mystery at length, but my act of witness "Grandson of Paleface" will do for now. "Your ms. lays out the central
pattern of the relationship between RFL Jr. and Sr., but without sufficient weight or emphasis. Its figure-in-the-carpet
lies in the struggle that persisted throughout Dad's life to create an identity separate from the man whose name he bore and
who tried from childhood on to obliterate him--making Dad his amanuesis, his ghost-writer, all-round employee, Junior,
the One Chosen to take over and thus be ultimately subsumed by Senior's life. RFL Sr. relentlessly dogged Dad to
subordinate himself to those endless "projects." Note well that Dad objected strenuously to the British edition
of Raintree County's appearing without the "Jr." RFL Sr. felt and acted as though he OWNED his namesake, and
Dad had this [indentured servitude] to struggle against. It's in your narrative, but buried--or off to one side,
in the shadows. At times it seems that you exert your greatest ingenuity in trying to dismiss any serious Dark Side
to this father-son dance of wills (to de-Leggett your story? to douse in advance any possible ember of what you know I think?).
However ineffectual and diminished the Father may be as a person, he remains in some living part of the Son's mind a GIANT.
It requires no sexual dimension to understand how, in the end, giving himself over to the "smotherer" might contribute
to the feelings of entrapment, powerlessness, worthlessness, and loss of self that lie at the base of Dad's suicidal depression."
E.L.
CLICK HERE to Download DARTMOUTH PROFESSOR JAMES M. COX regarding TRAVELS WITH ERNEST CLICK HERE: Regarding TRAVELS WITH ERNEST
Oak Creek, Sedona, Arizona: Where it all comes together.
She holds the apple that holds the worm that puts the vermiculate giants of DUNE to shame.
"EVERY BUSH CAN BURN IF YOU FIRE IT WITH YOUR IMAGINATION." Stanislaw J. Lec
CLICK HERE: from HARTSPRING BLOWS HIS MIND (1968) My painting, MOON ROCK, provided cover art for the book, LAST WRITES, A DAYBOOK FOR A DYING FRIEND, by Laurel Richardson, published by Left Coast Press, 2007: 
Professor Laurel Richardson: http://sociology.ohio-state.edu/lwr
CLICK HERE: from FLYING ELBOWS  "We wonder what was going on there. An afternoon exercise of the painterly arts perhaps.
We see the backside of a white convertible, top down, and the contents of a jagged and narrow back yard. And long weedy
grass. I think it's long and weedy! And a No Parking sign and a skinny watch dog. A mutt. The
colors dance and so does the feeling of a familiar, perhaps lackadaisical moment, when we ourselves captured, in words or
paint, the unvarnished and uncropped splendor of a hot afternoon." ArtScene
WHITE NIGHTS provides inter-textual design for the book LAST WRITES. In the painting it's 2 a.m.:
We stand on Race St. and look down Jew Lane, in the tiny village of Greeve,
Tasmania. The naming of "Jew Lane" appears to be lost in the mists of time, though the proprietor of a restaurant
offstage right says, "I think maybe a Jew lived there once."
"Lockridge's [painting] is grounded in his technical aplomb and in his familiarity with work of 'greats'--ranging from Sargent to Grandma Moses to Native American pictographs to the cave paintings at Chauvet. On his artist's statement he says that he began to use his first set of Sargents (!) paints when he was eight years old. Now he uses thickly applied paint and obvious brush strokes, like the Impressionists did. He is not afraid of color. His use of it although broad, is harmonious, meticulous. The tall BURNING BUSH, TASMANIA, seems about to explode with raw color and linear shapes." ArtScene
My wife Laurel, whose father was Al Capone's attorney in the 1920's, lived as a child in this
Chicago building, whilst in the building across the alley resided an entire tribe of Gypsies. She
and her childhood pet mutt Happy look apprehensively down at Mimi--our pet Abyssian Red--who rules the alley, and the world.
CLICK HERE: from PRINCE ELMO'S FIRE. Also, MARK SCHORER's letter to me
"Lockridge has mastered the elements of composition and color. Yet, his canvasses
manage to shimmy, to emit an electric charge.--It's brush strokes in motion! This is true of TIDAL POOL, YUCATAN, in
which a very small man in red trunks swims his way thru huge sheafs of white water toward the opening crevice that might suggest
the birth canal. Lockridge's paintings are all somewhat abstract, yet his majority of them include elements of the representational.
The swimmer in red trunks is a swimmer in red trunks!"
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