Well, the thing to do is not apologize for not writing, like it's a good idea not to apologize to people you haven't written to for a long time because they don't really want to hear it and it takes up all the space you have with stuff that they don't want to hear.
I've been struggling with painting lately, and it's mostly because I feel that some of the stuff I've been doing doesn't fit into our day and time as well as it might have used to. So I go searching for something that will, with mixed results. It's an age old problem, I think, for artists.
You look at some artists, though, their processes through the years go a long ways towards explaining what they are all about. Take an artist who always paints western scenes, or landscapes...no, not a good example. Take Deborah Butterfield, who come heck or high water creates stick bronzed horse sculptures.
In years that have been tumultuous (the 80s) she's produced horses, in times that have been excessive (the 90's) she's produced horses, in times (the 00's) when things are unsettled and unsure with a million jillion bytes of information beamed a person's way, she's produced horses.
I guess there's a market for them, but just how can these horses fit so many different times? I think that her original idea and original horse really must have fit the time she lived in the moment she created them, but after that they don't. It's not a good artistic practice to refuse to change with the times.
On the other hand, the time period between 1980 and 2009, thirty years, is a speck of time in the great ocean of it and so a horse in 1980 might say the same thing to it's audience as a horse in 2009 does.
Well, it's important not to judge and it's important not to think that you know all the answers. I guess I do know, though, that I'd like to produce something that reflects the poignancy of our times better than I have to this date. That might mean, however, lapsing into a sort of sadness that I don't want to lapse into, and I want to avoid that.
The upshot of this is that I've been painting over more paintings than normal, I'll work on them for a long time develop a highly crafted piece, and then get rid of it. It's struck me that the getting rid of it part of this particular process is significant and that should become my art piece and so I'm toying with that by painting over paintings and then displaying them.
It doesn't satisfy me though.
There is so much to overcome to become the painter that I would like to be, and particularly it involves my relationship to my audience. A guy can come into my studio and say, pointing at watercolors, Why would you waste your time on these when you can make those? and points to an oil painting. And I give that the time of day because I'm nothing (I believe) without an audience.
But the thing to absolutely remember is, no matter what I do (or any artist does) there are going to be people who like it. For every person who likes an oil painting there will be another one who likes a watercolor. So in the end, I should just do what I want to do and damn the consequences.
