A Few Words About What I Do (part 2)

A portrait, still life or a landscape can suggest stories in a quiet way, inviting a viewer to fill in what comes before and after. 

Paintings or drawings like these are relaxing because they can be read at face value, as only what they immediately depict, and so are less demanding on the viewer as well as the artist. Their narrative value is optional.  

They can be pleasing to the eye and nothing more, but there is 

always the possibility to consider why the subject was so arranged 

and what might be the meaning of such an arrangement. 

In this way a still life can be "read" just as any work of art should be read: with the assumption that anything included by the artist has been put there for a purpose. The question then becomes "What is its purpose?" and that is where the fun begins because that is where art comes alive!

Keeping it Simple

On a trip to Saluda, North Carolina, 
we went to an orchard and picked a basket of apples.

When we got home this one was on the bottom. The way a few leaves and stem had come away with it and been pressed together in the basket gave it character. The bruise made it downright poignant and so I decided it had to be painted! Sometimes the days that knock us around and mess up our hair are the most interesting.