Revision and Packing Bags

This body of work is that exactly. Work. Sometimes it's not good to restrain yourself in artwork but sometimes it is. For me it helps in building that overwhelming surge to do something beyond, the change that is uncomfortable but what is that supplies life to medium, the presence of art. My intent, for this body, is for the sake of my conservative origins, and because I need the discipline of completing a series of real subject in acrylic, despite my wanting to do anything else, I press on.

Artist's Texas Panhandle Studio, 2011.
It all fastens around the merger of abstract ideas and realistic subjects. The further I go, however, the more compelled I am to initiate the "Negetism", as I refer to it, or the act of destroying it. I viewed an artist interview yesterday, a very good artist in my opinion, who was speaking of the same concept. He works up these great oil pictures only to "destroy" them in a positive sort of way. A way that makes them great; like one of my favorite stories from undergrad, Honore de Balzac's "The Unknown Masterpiece".
For example, in this piece I call "The Straggler". The picture itself worked fine previously, but it lacked the asthetic to make it a mystery, or to show some hint of real carelessness. For me that makes the painting new, that comunicates the human condition. There's not much in this picture that changed, but enough to hint at the idea, enough to "help" it become a better painting.

The Straggler, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48", 2010.


The Straggler, acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48", 2011.

I took this piece over to Cheli's Cafe in Sanderson with a few others, I had my predispositions about it but had semi-settled on letting it be; until I saw the thing outside of the studio. In different light it felt a dead, and lacking finish. It just didn't have the fire a painting should have. I wanted to change it a bit, anymore would likely destroy it. That lesson noted in this conservative acryic effort. Time to move on to the next picture or risk going "Frenhofer" in my mind forever, which therein lies the potential in every piece.