I have a select group of people who I show my work to as it progresses to the finished state. The group consists of art experts and people who have no formal training in art, but appreciate it and tolerate my sometimes way to frequent requests for their opinion. Let’s call them “Susan’s Mentor Group” or SMG for short. I really treasure this group and value all of their opinions. I have relied on them for years to help me see my work through their eyes. When I ask for their critique I am amazed that they see things in the painting that I had not noticed at all; when they say this or that about the painting… I say of course, “why didn’t I see that!”. I do know that if I put a painting on the shelf for a couple of months, I see all sorts of things that I need to fix. But I am way too impatient and don’t have months to let the painting gel. So I rely heavily on the SMG to help me create paintings that make people smile, experience joy, bring memories back to life or help people imagine.
The other day one of my SMGs asked me “What makes artists choose a subject to paint?” Immediately I was flooded with 16,000 answers. Ok, Susan come up with two cogent reasons: 1.I see something–a spark that catches my eye because of the light effect, the mood of the colors, shapes, the emotion of the scene etc. It can be almost anything. 2. I then begin to imagine how can I tell that story? All of my work has a story to it. Most of the time that story is about an ordinary event. The sunset above happens a lot in Galveston. I wager that almost everybody in front of the Pleasure Pier that evening, stopped what they were doing and took in the beautiful gift of that sunset. The gift is the story that I tried to tell.
Hear Ye! Hear Ye! I am the featured artist for the October ArtWalk at G Lee Gallery. So mark your calendars. The show will go up October 1 and ArtWalk will be October 9th. I am planning on being at the Gallery for ArtWalk, so I hope that I will see you.
Take care of yourselves., check out my web page: www.tylerstudio.org
