Painting of the Week

This painting is called "Honorable."

Today I was working on inventory. I think that would be boring for most people, but for artists it's fun. It means shopping! I've been planning on trying out embossing powders and heat tools in my work. They are great for playing with different textures. I'm not the only one that's on a "texture kick." I have a theory about why so many are drawn to rougher textures, especially lately. Sleek computers, gadgets, and appliances abound. Flawless "gods" and "goddesses" on TV, movies and in advertising surround us. Perfect, perfect, perfect. Is it overload? Is that perhaps why we crave textual contrasts? Soft with coarse, smooth with slightly flawed, crackled, caked, and weathered? Maybe it's a rebellion born of the desire for more earthy, elemental and less machine.

Speaking of texture, Amber Lounder has an exhibit at the Galerie Georges Goguen that I'm looking forward to seeing tomorrow. I saw a sneak peak on her blog and you can too.

The local Community Business Development Corporation has invited Roger St Hilaire to give a training on "Strategic Sales for Artists." After two days of taking registrations, the seats are already half full. That's very exciting. A common attitude among artists in many areas has been that mixing business skills and art is a form of prostitution and takes away the purity of artistic expression. It seems that there is now room for another artistic path. Hooray for a paradigm shift! It always seemed to me that of all people, artists should be open minded to the fact that people do not always think the same. In fact, every artist being poured out of the same mould would make for a very shallow visual world and the purists could hardly claim to be pure.