John Bloom was a master of lines. Drawing directly from everyday life, he transformed his observations with a skillful economy and nuance that can only come from long experience and total observation. Even in his lithographic printmaking, his subtle and beautifully lighted tones were created by a multitude of lines. In his paintings, his linear preparations paid off in a painting style that grew progressively lighter, almost effortless.

A luminescent circle gleams over an ocean of subtle fabric waves. Little squares of small purple beads sit like boats on a pale-blue sea. Surprising fragments of red and white texture enter from the side. A cloaked green figure seems to walk along the shore to a blue-misted house in the distance. Behind in the sky, cloud forms repeat the patterns on the surface of the water. Little gold amulets shine in the light. One can feel the coolness in the air and the breeze rising up from the water.

Rarely does paint - the actual physical stuff laden with pigment - have as enthusiastic a friend as it does with Felix Morelo. The artist often lavishes his surfaces with thick and lustrous textured passages in blood reds, dirty aqua greens, or caustic oranges. In other areas, he stingily scrubs in the most minimal hints of browns or soiled denim blues.

On a small, dark stage, Venus slowly materializes, walking silently toward us in a diaphanous robe, holding a chalice and a sheath of wheat, her eyes distant. Jupiter, looking like Dionysus, sits on an invisible chair holding a jester's toy, laughing at something he's just heard from sly Mercury, who slowly floats by. Neptune the mystic crouches, bare-headed, waiting, looking beyond us.