Hello!
How do I explain my visual Art – which I take quite seriously, having devoted over five decades to its pursuit – and yet avoid the appearance of taking myself entirely too seriously. I’m normally a fairly taciturn person — to the point of being almost cripplingly shy — but someone nevertheless who still recognizes the necessity that an artist must, from time to time, communicate verbally or in writing . . . in words and even whole sentences.
Like most people, I began to draw and paint in kindergarten. Unlike most, I was painting fairly realistically in oils by the time I was seven. By the time I was an adolescent, I could paint or draw almost anything I set my mind to, and my life’s goal was to strive to be the world’s next great celebrity artist . . . the next Pable Picasso, Jackson Pollock, Andy Warhol, or Julian Schnabel, or some other such naive and idiotic concept.
Obviously, after a decade of college Art courses, and four more decades of personal experience since . . . the achievement of that goal never occurred. I might be tempted to ask myself “What went wrong with my brilliant plan?” if it weren’t for the fact that now, at the age of 63, I find myself relatively well blessed and happy and have the good sense not to ask such questions any longer.
Somewhere along the way, I made my peace with youth’s ambitions, and this world’s measurements of success. I have learned to pursue all of my creative impulses from an unhurried place of balance (more or less). I get passionate about the doing of it, in order to get the intended vision of it right, but I no longer worry very much about what people (strangers) think of it when it’s done or whether anyone will pay me or think better of me for it.
I have a loose network of creative friends who’s opinions matter to me and with whom I share my activities. As I’ve stated elsewhere, my friend Jeff Kaiser, once told me of a definition of Art as being little more than children playing on a mudbank and calling out to one another to show off their mud creations. More than anything else, that attitude very much permeates my approach to all creativity — and especially to visual Art — these days. I simply offer it as another way of sharing for those who care to “tune in.”
Thanks for visiting.