Days of other people's lives

We live our lives facing days as they come. At times we hit periods of bland repetition. We may become bored with our routines. Sometimes our days live us and we wake up to weeks or months having gone by.

Contented routines or frustrating stretches of career make us lose awareness of the lives of others.

The painting above, "Close to the Limit," came to me in the summer of 1993.

Months of news reports about long periods of rain in the heartland culminated in stories of lost harvests, lost homes, lost lives.

Levees had given way all along the Missouri and Mississippi rivers. Farm land was flooded, small rural towns were inundated. Evening news footage of people wading in hip-deep water in their living rooms, trying to save what they could of their belongings. I remember the image of a young wife carrying out an armful of things. Among them were a stuffed toy and a small American flag.

These reports went on for days as the flooding worked it way down the Mississippi.

Something about that mass misery caught my attention. I've forgotten whatever was going on in my life at the time. But I remember that large swath of misery and sorrow. I was safe and dry.

I responded to it with an image of an aging farmer who didn't go to his neighbor's funeral, who had nothing left but ruined land ... and was not going to be able to take one more piece of bad news.

I don't show the painting much. Who would want to live with a painful reminder of tragedy hanging on the wall? But I keep it. It is a reminder worth keeping.


The technical information on the painting is that it's 24" x 18", acrylic paint on canvas. Most of my paintings are in acrylics on canvas.

The irony here is that acrylic is a water-based medium and canvas is a cotton product grown in the river deltas of the South. Flood zones.

Art as Autobiography

I was thinking of getting into the whole "what is and isn't art" thing and had second thoughts about it.

I don't want to get smart-assed about that subject, but all it is is an argument waiting to happen.

we'd get bogged down in the mire of is-so!-is-not!

Totally counterproductive. I don't want to wade into that.

Check out the movie "Vincent and Theo" and/or the documentary "Who the $%#& is Jackson Pollock?" and you can have an art argument with yourself. And anyone else but me.

Every generation rejected artists (musicians, writers, painters) that following generations declared geniuses of their age.

People will respond to what they like, no matter what certification it has or lacks.

No one likes Barry Manilow, but 20 years ago the man had sold over 45 million records. I read that in a Rolling Stone interview. He probably has sold over a 100 million by now.

Nobody would admit to liking Mr. Manilow or his music. Someone must have been lying, don't you think? I just picked Mr. M as a metaphor for taste. Success in the arts is often measured by monetary success, except for Barry, I guess. Maybe there's another category ... secret success.

It takes a few generations to see what hangs around to define the overall culture of a people.

Me? I don't care about that any more.

I've found that I do what comes to me to do. I wouldn't mind being popular in some way because a lot of my paintings are the capturing of moments I experienced. A sort of "Wow, look at what I saw!" If more people were in on that exchange, it could become a conversation.

A gallery once existed here in Tallahassee called the Explorers' Club. I thought that was a great name. In my imagination, artists showing there had just returned from a trek and their work was a report of the safari to the club. Public welcome. Lecture at seven, refreshments will be served.

It occurred to me lately that most of the art I did was just that, a report on my trek. A view of my body of work will show most of the places where I've lived or visited, some of the people I've known and a few weird ideas or takes I've had on life.

Every picture tells a story, don't it?

The painting at the top, "Sunshine and Stream," is a view of the park in our old neighborhood, Indian Head Acres.

I must have looked at that runoff stream in the park throughout the 15 years we lived there. I also painted several other views of the same park. Just couldn't avoid it. There it was, right in front of me.

What's in front of you every day? What things do you notice that make you want to say "Hey, look at that!"? Tell me about it. I know what you mean.

More pictures and stories will come.

Start at the very beginning.

My thumbnail bio says I'm an apprentice retiree. A year and a half into it, I'm still a newbie. Still learning the ropes of the new gig.

I spent a career faking my way through a variety of jobs because I could draw. Never good enough to truly excel at it but managing to do it well enough to keep coming back every day.

Came back every day through forty years of design, layout, production, cartooning, illustration and book design. Charts, graphs, photography, line art, sign and window designs.

All the while, I went home evenings and painted.

Most of my life has been lived in Florida. I've painted in Miami, in Orlando, in Tallahassee.

On the Panhandle coast and the Atlantic coast.

But mostly in Tallahassee. Hills and oak trees. Pine trees. Magnolia trees. Azalea bushes and camellia bushes. Painting Tallahassee requires a lot of green pigment.

I hate green now. I have the common male weakness in seeing the red/green spectrum.

I can see it, but it takes a lot of careful looking and good lighting conditions.

Forty plus years later, I think this blog is going to be about art. Big "A" and little "a" art.

Being an artist and doing it because ... well, because I have to. Can't really say I'm a successful painter. Never won a notable competition. Entered a bunch.

Managed to sell a respectable amount of paintings over the decades, but couldn't make a living at it. Fine art is a tough game to master. It takes determination and grit. People skills. Patience.

Having talent wouldn't hurt, either.

Finally, what does "making it" mean, in the end? What are the possibilities for holding one's head up with a pride of accomplishment? How does one begin to know if, when, one is a good artist?

Does it matter? Who cares?

Let's find out.