Friday, January 17, 2014

Some old, old paintings and a new strategy...

So this week I have been taking down my very oldest saved paintings from their perch just beneath the ceiling of my studio. I'm doing this because I plan to install an additional shelf that will act as a brace for the wooden rack I use to stack my paintings vertically. The rack has been leaning over at the top from the pressure those old paintings exert when they lean against the wall (get it? Sort of like a parallelogram.) and I've been getting very worried about a catastrophic collapse that would damage some of my newer paintings - the ones I still have hopes of selling.

These really old paintings have accumulated throughout the years I worked in oils, from the time I began to paint as a profession (and some even before that).

Since that time I have worked hard at learning my chosen métier. I've perfected a style and changed media to acrylics. I've shopped my work around to numerous galleries and have sold really hundreds (!) of paintings.

And when I look back at these really old paintings I am horrified to find that I still like them and think they are good paintings!

Why horrified? Because wouldn't you think that all those years of dedication would have resulted in some really significant progression of my style and technique? But here I find so many of those old paintings still appeal to me. And I would still be happy to be producing those works now.

Leading to the epiphany: perhaps an artist comes to the profession with a particular and individual vision. Then the best paintings of the beginning years are those that best display that vision - beginner's luck so to speak. And all the years spent thereafter are, if successful, spent learning how to reproduce that vision more consistently, so that perhaps the percentage of successful paintings becomes higher the longer the artist works.

Very old paintings:

 
    


So if you have followed along here and are reading this sentence, I have also decided to use this blog primarily to record my own ideas on any subject, art included, and maybe even current affairs, if I can get over my fear of attracting the wrong kind of attention - from some of those people who think it's OK to name call and threaten those who hold opinions that differ from their own. So - maybe…



1 comment:

  1. I like your paintings, old and new.

    If you start with an authentic vision that you find worthy of refining and burnishing over time, that's wonderful. It's folks who create what they think they "should" create who run into problems.

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