[Tom Edgerton]

Competitions are a conversation among artists, without the sitters or clients involved. It's the environment in which we hold up superior work to each other for our mutual admiration and delight, and for what we can learn from it. The awards are bestowed on both commissioned and non-commissioned work, but these categories are rarely if ever delineated or discussed, nor in my opinion should they be. Good work is good work.

When I paint for myself, without compensation from the sitter, I can paint any human emotion I choose and explore any facet of human psychology I want to depict. These are works that I initiate, for my own aesthetic satisfaction.

When I enter into a commission, I enter into a collaboration with the client. I don't perceive my job in this context as imposing my own psychological overlay onto them, other than what occurs naturally. They want to be portrayed in a favorable light, or at least as reasonable people, and it's not my task to convince the world otherwise. Also, because of my own gregarious nature, I rarely meet a potential client that has no qualities that I can appreciate or respond favorably to. End of story.

A fortunate few of the portrait artists working today have achieved a career status and reputation that may cause a comissioning client "give over" to whatever vision that the artist wants to create. This is the exception, not the rule. I would love to be in this position, but I don't chafe under the limitations of a commissioned environment--it's my bread and butter, and I want to be busy. And to some extent, that is what determines what of my work I choose to include on my site.

The conceit that anything but a dark or serious portrayal of a subject is somehow less spiritually "truthful" or "deep" is nonsense. It is completely possible to show a sitter with a positive or pleasant demeanor and still produce a work with richness and complexity, that continues to inform and reward the viewer upon repeated visits.

A body of portrait work with a relentlessly serious or dark viewpoint doesn't tell me anything more about the subjects than uniformly "happy" work, but it speaks volumes about the artist. Or the critic.

Thanks for a pithy discussion.

With warm regards to a fellow artist--TE