A visitor to my studio expressed her dismay that my landscape painting were abstract. She was expecting beautifully rendered , representational( i.e. realistic) landscapes of bucolic country scenes. You know, like real landscape painters.
I could not have been more delighted.
I work really hard to find that sweet spot where I feel my paintings need to be. That spot is some place on the line between reprepresentaion and abstraction....and that line is long and has many sweet spots, just not always MY one. Its a tensionbetween the two elements that I try to achieve. The Twang of Perfect Place and Feel ( to me).
The work is hard because I have to give up some things in order to achieve others. I destroy a lot of good, observational passages to get to the "twang" that I feel.
I know this all reads as artists mumbo-jumbo, but I cannot tell you how delighted I was with my visitor's comments .It means I am doing something right. Never before have a I reacted so well to criticism!! Might be the last time, also, so please don't feel free to bombard me observations about my flaws or flaws in my work!
It gave me the courage I needed this morning to destroy work I had spent weeks on and repaint in the fashion that I felt better suited the painting.
Not a masterpiece, just a small victory and a move towards that sweet spot.
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