The Painter's Key: Hyper-Perfectionism

Robert Genn's "The Painter's Keys" has a great "letter" about hyper-perfectionism, a disease I am afraid I may suffer from periodically. Ok.....often.

Great meeting with Kathleen. What a blessing to connect with another artist and find that we often wrestle with the same issues and have such similar desires for our work.

Revisting Older Paintings

I had a meeting with the wonderful Twig Murray from the NVFAA today. She came all the way out to me to have a second look at my work and, hopefully, convince her colleagues to put together a show of the work. It is such a blessing to see her enthusiasm for art and for my art in particular. She also gave me really good criticism, as well.

It is a strange experience to have all of my work on front me. There are a handful of paintings that I still feel are unfinished though they have been hanging around for awhile. This one hangs in my hallway, so I see it often. I have never felt it was complete, so I took it to the easel to see what to have a good look at it. The first thing I noticed was how off the drawing is. I did this one two years ago and my drawing skills are radically better, so the entire head has to be re-stated. My natural tendency is to exaggerate reality because I like the way it looks, but I wasn't aiming for that on this one back then. At first I had an "oh, crap, I just ruined this" moment, but I am going to keep working at it because I believe in the idea.

I am also going to return to this one at some point. I want to bring a few things up and take a few down.

Wise Words From Ariane Goodwin

Ariane Goodwin creator of the Smartist Telesummit and author of "Writing the Artist Statement" sends out a artist tips email each week. This section was particularly powerful to me today:

"Noticing a disconnect between the effort you put into writing your artist statement and its marketing impact? Make it more powerful by getting a little naked. Listing your credentials can be impressive... but how many times have you been drawn to someone because of their credentials? Facts inform, but they don't often draw people to you.Instead of using your artist statement as a recitation of bio facts, let people behind the canvas, under the clay, or into your darkroom. People might ask you where you learned your technique, but what they really want to know is....What's it like to be an artist? What time of day do you most like to work? What music do you listen to? What do you do when the muse deserts you? If you couldn't make art anymore, what would you do?Tell 'em what they want to know. Even you might find that your artist statement makes for more interesting reading."

You can read the entire email here. It is full of great stuff....

Painting

Another artist found me in space and invited me to become part of the BlueCanvas community. Many of the art sites I am on don;t seem to be very active, but since registering last night I have received numerous comments and made connections with other artists. So, my artist friends, check out BlueCanvas.

I don't feel like I got a lot done today and my product-bent left brain it firing. I worked on a few backgrounds and pushed paint around, but nothing really is coming to the surface yet. I have to constantly remind myself to go with the process, that this process has steps and that each step is not the same, may be unlevel, lead to a long flat surface....or grade quickly.

Back to work

After being away from the easel for a week, I find myself eager to return but with trepidation and frustration over not being quite ready to begin a new painting. This stag painting is still unfinished and I want to get on to narrowing down all the scraps of notes into cohesive images for new work. I have felt rather down and highly critical of my work over the last few weeks. I understand well the valley after completing well-done painting mountain experience.

Craig returns from a two week trip to Kansas City tomorrow and it is off to the Artomatic site Saturday to get my assigned wall. Here are a few photos of the building and the partitions being built.

Photos by Jennifer Beinhacker

"Nee's Passing on the Third Day of the Spring Revolt"

A dark hour evokes a dark atmosphere...more about Nee to come.