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Tuesday, August 2, 2011

I am not a traditional realist...

Tomato Basket   oil/canvas   16 x 20 x 1.5
There, I said it.  Acceptance of my artistic direction.  Said with a sense of loss.  And also with a sense of relief.  I so admire traditional realism.  But after years of wiping out chairs upon which the models rest, I am ready to face my own direction with fortitude.  I have tried painting the barn behind the horse, the curtain behind the still life and the trees behind the model.  My sense of aesthetics has urged me to wipe them all out.  Yes, a light source matters to some degree.  It helps to describe my realistic forms, to ward them away from flatness.  But the design approach of dark and light patterns is where my thrill is....those patterns that exist and move and relate without regard to the subject matter.

"Tomato Basket" took quite a while to paint,  I remember being confused by my own desires being in conflict with the window behind the basket.  The tomatoes literally rotted while I figured it all out.

I am what I am and that's all that I am........Popeye