What’s revelant to you?

I once met a popular watercolor artist who’d judged many painting competitions tell me that there are a few iconic pictures that he sees over and over: Barns, palm trees, fruit on a table, ‘old timers’ reflecting and sailboats. What makes these subjects popular, I think, is that somewhere, sometime, we have all been influenced by someone who did an amazing job depicting them. And naturally, we try our hand at them.

But that’s OK, I think. Because finally, after working through these, we come upon the things that move us most. That may be making art that highlights a social wrong, or that may be capturing the magical way a glint of sun strikes the side of a barn. The important thing, I believe, is to be true to what drives us, and never to conform to someone else’s idea of what is fitting.

This quest to find our own content is perhaps the greatest quest for the artist, because, with enough practice, even the most difficult of watercolor techniques can be learned. Even the most aggressive pigments can be harnessed. But finding a sense of personal content is an everlasting trip. I started to really understand my own mojo at, of all places, a plein air competition. I’d painted a creaky old locomotive in near-psychedelic colors. I overheard a guy say “This looks like it was painted by somebody from outer space.” He went on to explain that seeing the train in those colors made him see it in a different light. I never knew if he liked the painting or not, but I do know that he stopped a while to consider it, and the artist who painted it.

I have read of art ‘happenings’ where a performance artist threw a handful of colored dust to the ground to make a political statement, and I have seen little blue-haired artists unveil waterfall paintings full of vigor and emotion. I can’t say that one is relevant and one is not. I just know that I admire the person who travels the road that seems right to them.

It is the place that, when we find it, needs nothing more from us than permission to exist, and, in granting that permission, we grant the artist in us permission to exist, too.