the great aloneness

There is a great aloneness to making art. No one tells you which ideas to pursue or how to convey those ideas. In each moment that an aspect of a work is confronted…a direction chosen in its progression…the death of countless others occurs. And when the completion of that work comes there is almost a mourning over what a piece could have been had you chosen another approach. So the decision making process in creating a work of art is overwhelming. With artists like myself who work largely from a surreal and imagined realm these issues are magnified ten-fold. I don’t use a set of rules and techniques to tell me how to work and I don’t copy from what I see. Those who work in this way have most of their work done for them once they master the assigned rules. Someone long before has already figured out the techniques and someone has already created the subject. On the rare occasion that I work from conscious reality not only do I find fewer challenges but I also find myself less interested…..