Beautiful and Lovely Gets My Vote

Over the past few years since returning from Germany, I have met a ton of artists here in Tidewater. They are as diverse as their artwork. There seems to be a common thread though, or perhaps a "dividing line" that I keep running into. There are artists that want to paint in your face, social commentary into their work. In my view, this is a good thing because making people think about things in a new and different light is important. Then there are artists that only want to paint the simple, everyday stuff in which they see beauty and wonder. I think that both are valid and I choose not to elevate one kind of art over another. I also believe that the subject matter is not so important, but rather the relationship of the artist to the work and then the viewer to the art is the real crux of what it is all about. It often makes me sad to hear the mumblings of how "trite" a lovely landscape can be or how "gross" an "in your face" painting is. Artists can be very competitive and for some reason, there is a belief that criticizing what others choose to paint somehow elevates their own work. In the end, as I have said before, the work speaks for itself. Qualities like composition, movement, color, drawing ability, and execution, to name a few, are the things that make a piece of art successful or not. There is plenty of room for all of this and the bickering and judgement has to stop. For an artist, it is all about choices and here, we surely mimic life. One makes a million choices with each stroke of the brush and at any point, it can turn and lead you in the wrong direction or to exciting, cool places. It's an adventure that I personally love and feel grateful that I have been allowed the opportunity to pursue this painting thing each and every day.
Surely, my work falls into the "trite" catagory, as viewed by some. I'm okay with this because I agree wholeheartedly with Renior when he writes...
"A picture should be something that is pleasant, joyful and pretty; there are enough unpleasant things in life to dissuade us from producing still others."

Pierre-August Renior
The onions above are only 3x3 inches and one of my paintings that will be at the Charles Taylor Miniature Invitational Show 2011 opening Oct 23rd from 2-5pm.