Success.
The group show has been up for a couple of weeks. It is a pleasure having my 24 pieces hung in a open space with decent lighting and plain white walls. I feel the impact of them in a very different way than in my little, dark, paint-splattered studio.
Good friends and appreciative strangers came to the opening as did two of my models. It was fun to show people the inspiration, talk art, and articulate the process of my painting. It was very satisfying to watch people look — really look — at my pieces.
“Are those two figures…dancing?”
“I love the color.”
“That’s a fist. Right?”
“So much movement.”
This was success to me. People spending time looking and piecing together what makes sense to them about one or more of my paintings — supplying their own narrative or just enjoying the line, shapes, and colors.
For years I have practiced to get it “right” — to understand color theory, shading, perspective, line, contour, gesture. I’ve practiced the ‘correct’ way to apply materials (depending of course on the teacher of the moment) or to understand anatomy. I’ve read biographies and curatorial notes to understand what artists do. I’ve wanted to make things that look the way they are supposed to look. I’ve wanted to make art that people liked and wanted to buy. If asked, I could explain the technical aspects of how it all works and a lot of the history behind it. I could even demonstrate it.
But what I have always wanted was to be an artist more than a draftsman. I think I am better suited for that profession. I wanted to take a leap of faith and paint something that was expressive of the way I see the world. Art is the most immediate and concrete way I can show other people a different way of seeing the world.
When I look at the six pieces that collectively make up my “portrait” of Jason or the six canvases that make up my interpretation of Isaiah — or Michael — or Phil — I see each of them and the experience of spending time with them — their form and their character — captured through my vision and expressed through my application of paint and charcoal and pastel and ink on a piece of cardboard or paper or art board — as it was — at that moment in the studio when they were all nice enough to share themselves with me.
It is a very confused, mysterious, and absolutely satisfying state of being.
This is how I see things.
This is my measure of success.