Day 281: For my four loyal followers.

When I created this blog last January, I had absolutely no idea how much my life would change over the course of the year. In the last eight months, I have worked harder at painting than I thought possible, have shown more work than ever, and have sold twenty nine paintings. Also, I have run over one thousand miles, experienced my first broken heart, visited 17 new counties, and gone from living with my fiancée and dog, to only living with my dog. And now after spending all my money on world travels (this is my self-prescribed therapy) and completely exhausting myself, I find my self back at my most basic urge. To create something great.
Here's the thing. I know my standards are high, and at times I've even been accused of being an art Nazi, and visually puritanical.

Until recently (within the last six months) my main goal was to create objects that would be genuinely lovely, employing an intense attention to detail. Over time, my critical eye has not been resting on my ability to create objects of beauty, as that is fairly simple to do with enough dedication and practice. And in the end, the most aesthetically stunning object I could possibly create using my two hands is a mere shade of the beauty that exists in nature already. My focus now is this; to distill images down to their emotional power. I want to make paintings that create immediate, overwhelming nostalgia. The nostalgia/dejavu is necessarily created through a familiar subject matter, but through ambiguous images that we have all seen one thousand times. The success of the painting will be determined not only by my ability to paint correct subject matter, but to paint in a way that evokes a sense of loss. I've been experimenting with this idea over the last few months. Here is an example of a painting that is what I refer to as a stepping stone.

"Stepping Stone" means that the painting has no value to me except as a learning tool, something that I create that teaches me what to do again, and what not to do. (In honesty, I feel that all my paintings up are stepping stones, each taking me closer to my end goal of creating something truly spectacular)It is obviously a painting, and yet, somehow, it reminds you of photography. I have to ask myself as an artist if this is a good or bad thing.

As much as I hate it, this art is reactionary.

Of course, I could say "What in this world is not reactionary?" All major movements of art were born out of the chaos of the world, the artists' response to social stimuli. But I think this painting in particular, is personally reactionary. I am reacting to criticisms regarding my art, often people that it is realistic, photographic, shallow, lacking depth, etc. Of course, people say "I can take a photo, why would you need to paint so photorealistically?" I knew the answer to this question of course, but until recently I was not able to own it.
Two reasons. One, because I have a giant fucking ego and the easiest way to impress people is with realism (when I say people, maybe I mean specific people, but that of course, is a long story). And two, because until I mastered realism, I felt like I was not a good enough painter.

Maybe this painting isn't the best to talk about my goals with, since I feel like it was generally unsuccessful. The values are too middle of the road, the colors remind me of fruit salad, there is

not drama. The one thing that I thing is successful about this painting is that I feel it creates a sense of memory, and maybe even of something lost, or about to be lost.

I hope that when I paint semi realistically and then manipulate the images I create to make them appear fuzzy, vibrating, or moving, it insinuates a feeling of transience...of things constantly, moving, changing, morphing, dying, recreating themselves. This is what I would like to convey in my paintings because this is essentially a reflection on the human condition. Here are some other attempts, mostly failed:

I know what you are thinking. Time for a bonfire.