Thanks, Chris, for posting this newsletter.
As a matter of fact, I had just returned from dinner with my 26 yr old son, where we had a discussion about "modern art" and painting what sells. There is a local artist whose work he has seen who has gotten some national notoriety and supposedly is selling quite a bit of work. The work is abstract and rather absurd, but for some I guess the weirder the better. If that is what you like.
My son's position is that it is "original" art and comes from within whereas the type of paintings that I do, realisim and portraits in particular are "pretty to look at" but in his opinion they are not original because I don't "make them up from out of my head".
I tried to explain the difficulty and amount of time and study one must devote when one paints in the realist manner. No, I don't just go pouff and slap something on a canvas. My husband had the good sense to intervene into the conversation and point out to the child that he was upsetting his mother. Rather than spoil my dinner, I changed the conversation.
Then I came home and read the newsletter you posted and immediately felt redeemed. I could slap out a few absurdly abstract paintings a day, and given the right market maybe even sell them, but I would be lying to myself. I hope one day, my son will come to realize the difference between painting what is currently selling and painting something for posterity.
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