It’s been a while Since I’ve posted anything up here. Sorry about that. I’m really not making good on my promise to post something new here every single week.
The only excuse I can offer is busyness.
I’ve been busy. Very busy.
Lots of prep work, lots of new paintings, and lots of shows.
I hung my ninth show of the year the other day. That’s a new personal record for me. Nine shows and over 100 new paintings in one year, and I’ve still got 1 full month to go.
It’s been a good run for me this last little while. Since May of 2009, I’ve pretty much had a constant stream of shows and deadlines ahead of me. This has kept me very busy. Deadlines give me some much needed focus and motivation, and a chance to work hard and really push one idea has been great. But, the constant time crunch and the constant need to have a certain amount of new work ready by a certain date meant that every painting I made had to be a ‘show piece’. The painting had to be successful; it had to be show worthy.
While I feel that I achieved that, I miss trying out completely new things.
With each show piece, I made some subtle tweaks to my process. I make a point of trying at least one new thing in every piece I do. I don’t want my work to ever feel stale. But there is a huge difference between refinements of one idea, and messing around in my studio and just seeing what happens when I play. That’s where new ideas and breakthroughs come from.
I’ve got a good number of showings of the Urban Landscapes under my belt; I’ve got a bit of a stockpile of new work built up, and I’ve got nothing planned for the next 2 months. That means that for the first time in almost 2 years, I can just walk into my studio, mess around, and see what happens. It will be a time of personal development, and I am very much looking forward to it.