Creative Challenges

In progress, oil on canvas, 34"x60"

Getting there. After last week's power outages from Fay, I managed to get some work done on the piece I started.

This is the artwork that pays the bills. Cranked out with the explicit purpose to sell for decent money. Business is about sales.

I create two types of paintings: a) commercial tried and true racing subjects, traditional in tone (yet still dynamic), not pushing any envelopes, produced to keep my business in the black and appealing to the majority of my collectors. These paintings establish that I've learned my craft, developed decent skills and am a respectable painter. Then there's b) what I consider the real "art", edgy, innovative, exploring all levels including: boundaries of edges, concept, presentation of emotional feel, multiple canvas theories, paint application as expression and forcing this genre into the esteemed mainstream.

This is a tightrope I traverse every day in the studio. Of course I desire to create the "art", yet I'm under considerable pressure to be financially productive. The "art" is acceptable to museums who eat up the genre with a big fat twist (art snobs consider painting passe although they desperately grasp at anything radical or remotely fresh to appease a certain longing), while collectors respond with only mild interest.

So, am I underestimating my collectors and their ability to appreciate leaps outside the box? To actually be contemporary? Am I unconsciously repeating the same 'ol same 'ol to really placate myself? On one hand, I'm bored and that screams volumes about the process. On the other hand, Michael has recently retained an intellectual law attorney because I tend to freak him out on a regular basis with my manic brainstorming. ("Can we do that?")

"I own up to my own mediocrity, embrace it actually, and think of it as the petri dish wherein I strive to culture my own excellence". - Carole MacRury (thanks, Carole)