A couple posts earlier I mentioned how this little diagonal blossom in-progress picture has something about it that makes me sense that it could eventually be something special. I gave a couple of examples of previous pictures about which my instincts told me something similar early in the making of them.
I've probably said this before, but I'll risk repeating myself. I told someone once that the only people who seem to like what I paint are other people who paint and jurors for juried exhibitions. The most common reaction I get from people who don't paint is, "That picture is very interesting."
When you submit something to a juried exhibition, you have to realize that the juror might well have preferences regarding what he or she looks for in a picture. Even though there are probably some objective criteria in evaluating pictures, art appreciation is and always has been subjective. And so, having a picture selected or rejected by a juror is not a conclusive determination of the merits of a picture, even if it sort of stings when a juror does not choose a picture you thought was wonderful.
A couple years ago a painter friend of mine and I attended the opening of a juried exhibition. One of the first things we saw was the picture that was awarded "best in show." We looked at it for maybe five minutes. She said, "If this won I don't know if I want to see any of the other stuff." We persevered, though, and we came to a picture that received an "honorable mention." It was - in my opinion, at least - a spectacular picture. We puzzled over what the juror could possibly have been looking for in making the choices for the awards. We both felt that the one that was "best in show" was one neither of us would have given even an honorable mention to.
A couple years ago the picture below was accepted for a national juried exhibition of small works. It measures 3 1/2 X 5 1/2 inches.
I didn't attend the exhibition. It was thousands of miles from where I lived. But, in all honesty, I have to think that many of the people who did attend the exhibition probably had the same reaction to my picture that I had to the "best in show" picture: Why was this one chosen? (It didn't win an award, at least, so I imagine any reaction among viewers was more or less a quick glance, a shrug of the shoulders, and on to the next picture.)
The thing is, this little picture was one that I had that same instinctive feeling about while working on it that I'm getting from the diagonal blossom picture I'm now making. Every form felt so right, every color had a tactile aspect, everything seemed to tie together, and there was a dimensionality that was emerging more and more with each form I added.
Plus, something else was going on during the time I worked on it: It looked huge, way out of proportion to its actual size. This has happened with other small pictures. While making them, I've lost sight of how little they are. I have a couple pictures that almost startle me when I look at them now, long after finishing them, because I recall them being much larger.
And that's what's happening with this diagonal blossom picture. It's being painted on a sheet that measures 14 X 20 inches. The part painted so far covers an area about 4 X 4 inches more or less in the center of the bottom half of the sheet, and yet while I'm working on it I worry that I'm starting to get too close to the edges. It's a weird illusion, and I experience something like anxiety as a result, but it also might be what triggers the instinct that this picture has much potential. And, for the thousandth time, it probably helps explain why I let these things consume so much of my time and energy.
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