Fully realized

[Mike McCarty]

I wonder if I could get some help understanding a style of painting that I see and like, and to some extent have done myself. I've never been very good at artspeak. First of all I don't like to hear it. I don't like the fact that a painting must be explained, that I must not be able to "get it" without a hand out flyer.

My question is not so much about the above kind of art speak, but mostly about my own ignorance and desire to be able to communicate intelligently with the people that may view my paintings, or any other paintings.

It has to do with paintings that are not fully realized. They may have a high degree of finish in the upper three quarters of the painting but then tail off to bare canvas, or in a "vignette."

When an intelligent, albeit not in the arts, person says to you:

* when will you finish it?
* why have you already framed it?
* did you just get bored with it and quit?
* were you pressed to start another?
* I would want mine to be finished with paint everywhere.
* you would charge less for this, right?

I think people understand more easily when you do a "sketch" in the middle of the canvas, but the combination of highly finished, and unfinished seems to confuse people.

I'm pretty sure that this technique has hundred's of years of history, but I'm not strong on art history having never studied it academically. If you were standing with a person in front of a painting of this sort, and confronted with these questions, what would you say to educate them (and me)?