Pot of Potatoes

Pot of Potatoes   watercolor   13 x 17

Sometimes life is just a pot of potatoes....common and not so extraordinary. Artists such as myself often paint ordinary objects in our daily lives, and through the work of their keen sensitivities, elevate the daily into the monumental. There are many such paintings in every exhibit. Luckily, we, as individuals, see things in our own personal and subjective ways. That is what makes for a varied and interesting existence. So..............when a judge comes to town and selects work for exhibit, he/she brings with her/him, her/his past experiences and notions of the extraordinary. It breaks my heart to see work that I consider to be wondrous excluded from the exhibit. (Competition is actually a left-brained notion to which we right-brained artists continually subject ourselves). I guess I think that in the final run, we artists have to determine for ourselves our own sense of extraordinary and hold fast to it, regardless of outside opinion. We take responsibility for our work. We are our own best critics. Hard to do. "Pot of Potatoes" was painted many years ago. I love love love it, despite the fact that it has never gotten much attention from anyone else.