Easel on Stribling

2018-Present

This is a curated representation of the concept. For the entire body of work, which is still active, visit www.easelonstribling.com

“Easel on Stribling” is a multi year project which unpacks the transformation midshipmen endure at of the U.S. Naval Academy through impressionist narrative paintings of moments familiar to those who have navigated the process.

This project originally had multiple goals:

First, it was how I processed an experience that changed my life. Turning each of these moments into paintings was initially a four year process of simultaneously revisiting each moment and all of the memories (good and bad) that came along with them.

Next, I designed the project to help me grow as a painter. The story of this experience had pretty much every representational challenge I could picture: still life, landscape, (multiple) figures, photographic references, made up/memory references, low light, narratives, architecture… Before this project began in 2018, I had spent 5 years seriously learning oil painting, but not yet putting my ideas into the work I was making.

Finally, I wanted to give back to a group of people and an institution that has touched my life and formed me into who I am, for better and for worse. I believe it’s important to honor where we came from and to thank the people who have helped us get to where we are. The first four years of painting eventually became a coffee table book, designed to encourage connection to the individuals relationship to the place.

Why this project kept going…

I continue to create for this body of work even after my initial vision for the paintings and book were completed in 2023.

This project grounds me in my origin story and these relationships who have given my life so much meaning. Continuing to dedicate time creating for and in community with the U.S. Naval Academy family is important to me. It also is a way to connect two seemingly opposite communities: the arts and the military. There is more in common between the two than one may initially assume, and I truly enjoy navigating that relationship and standing in the gap.

And also… It is still a place where I can playfully explore other mediums in painting and design, and stay rooted in the joy of observational and narrative painting. To love the process is to continue making, after all.

Notable Moments

20 original paintings part of permanent collection of the U.S. Naval Academy Museum
Solo exhibition in the Secretary of the Navy gallery at the U.S. Pentagon, Washington, D.C. 2022-2023.
Solo exhibition at the National Veterans Memorial and Museum, Columbus, Ohio. 2023.
“Morning Colors” painting accepted into Art in Embassies program (2023) and placed in the Brussels, Belgium embassy in 2026.

Press Mentions