Maybe a Vortex
oil on canvas
24" x 30"
Because I know you're all dying to know...
I drove out to Arizona a few weeks ago and wandered through the desert with my paints and brushes. I was invited to take part in the Sedona Plein Air Festival with twenty-some other picture painters from all sorts of other far-off places...places so far-off the picture painters from said places reacted as if little Bloomfield, Indiana was an exotic location upon reading my descriptive name tag. The typical response was something like, "Holy Shit! Indiana huh?" Turns out, in the most beautiful places on earth, folks like to romanticize the notion of living somewhere exponentially more boring in comparison. Who needs mountain air, ocean breezes, or postcard vistas when you have "The Greatest Spectacle in Racing"?
I painted forty-three pictures during my time in Arizona...ran out of canvas before I ran out of socks. All of the romantics chalked it up to my "Midwestern hard work ethic" and we had a good laugh with lots of winks and pats on the back. Evidently, driving 3,500 miles to paint pictures from sunup through sundown with neglect to leisure, socializing, and personal hygiene will earn you a crazy badge. I might be deserving. Call me crazy, but you'd be a moron to drive 3,500 miles to paint pictures and not paint like a crazy person.
Anyhow, it's taken me two weeks to unload the van. Scattered through the foam coffee cups, stale potato chips, and mounds of transplanted red dirt, forty-one paintings were found. Thankfully, upon review from the homestead, I discovered most of the paintings don't suck. In fact, I like most of the paintings quite a bit. But unfortunately, according to the back-patting romantics, returning to the Midwest with paintings of anything other than barns and covered bridges is just preparation for disappointment. I've been informed, in the entire history of picture painting, not a single picture painted of red rock or desert landscape has ever been sold in the Hoosier state.
Luckily, I'm not in the business of selling pictures. I drive around, I look at things, I paint pictures of stuff, and then I hang those pictures up on the wall so I can remember how much I enjoyed driving around looking at things...all without any hope of making a single dollar. It's pretty complicated.
If I haven't bored you back to instatwitter, here's what I think this all means for you...
I plan on hanging all of the paintings I've created over the past couple months while driving around looking at things on a bunch walls for you to look at...not to purchase, of course. So, if you like driving around and looking at things like I do, but for whatever reason, have decided not to paint the stuff you liked looking at, you might enjoy remembering the stuff you might've seen while driving around in places like those I have driven through and then decided to paint pictures of. Let's pretend my gallery is your car, my paintings are your windows, and I'm driving you across the country to look at a bunch of fantastic things solely because I have accompanying stories I desperately need to tell someone before I forget them. It's going to be fun...for me...that's why I'm doing it...duh.
So, if any part of this roundabout, "I don't want to sell paintings" sales pitch riles you up to the point of proving me wrong, I hope to see you soon. If you like the idea of having real conversations with real people you may or may not know about how good or bad my pictures may or may not be, I hope to see you soon. If you like eating meatballs, cocktail wienies, and other delicious holiday fare with toothpicks from tiny plates while staring at something other than your stupid smart phone, I hope to see you soon.
You're invited! Details on the exhibit are forthcoming, so stayed tuned...or don't...whatever...I'm doing it with or without you...duh.
The paintings will be for sale.
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