The last time I posted was sometime in April or May. I had written about attending Snow Camp with Stapleton and later wrote an article on the virtues of being a classical artist and following the rules as opposed to just throwing it all out the window. Well, kind of.
It’s now Mid December and we, my wife and I have gone out and painted a few pictures since my last post. We’ve taken a trip down to California, a trip through Idaho and down to Nevada. We’ve trekked over to eastern Washington a couple of times. Up to Alta Lake, down to The Palouse Falls, then over to Dosewallops on the Olympic Peninsula. From there over to the western side of Washington to the Pacific Coast, Forks, Cape Flattery and La Push.
Something that is particularly nice about painting outside, sometimes in crowds of people is that for the most part, everyone enjoys seeing you there and doing your thing. Most people’s lives are not spent around art and artists.. Kids are usually very interested in what you’re doing and unlike their parents aren’t inhibited about approaching you with questions or compliments. However, if you do it long enough you will run into someone who just isn’t friendly. A couple of years ago we stopped along a road near a driveway into a farm area. A woman was across the street or Hwy with a gas powered weed eater working the area in front of the house. She said that they had tractors and trucks going down this drive all the time. It was a busy road. I told her we certainly didn’t want to affect their operation and I believed we were out of the way enough to do that.
She continued on for a while and eventually walked across the street to where we were painting. Starting first by the entrance to the farm drive she rather quickly made it to where we were standing. Eventually weed eating around our easels and feet. She clearly wanted to let us know she didn’t like us there. To my wife’s surprise, I held my temper and continued to paint. Once we both got our paintings to a point where it could be finished in more friendly territory, we packed up and left. A friend of mine suggested I use some of my painting skills to do a few political cartoons. Remembering this incident and writing about it may have inspired me for something else.
The truth is, being an artist can be hard. I’m lucky in that I’ve already had a career because way back when I decided I didn’t want to be a starving artist, which was certainly one path I could have chosen. In many ways art is much like sports. Finding a career in either is difficult and it’s probably about the same percentage of people who “make it” in either trade. The big difference is, you can make art, enjoy doing it whether you’re picked for the big team or not.