I'm finally getting on a consistent stride with my painting again. Even though I haven't been in there on the schedule I usually keep over the past four months, I have managed to get a few new paintings done, along with some works on paper. It's a good thing, too, because this morning, I had a meeting with Bridgette at the studio. In that meeting, she mentioned that a solo exhibition spot had opened up for this September. She asked me if I wanted the slot.

I had to think about it for, oh, a minute before agreeing to take it. She told me that I was originally scheduled to have my next show in March, 2006. At first, I was going to decline, feeling that 6 months wasn't going to be enough time to have the amount of good paintings I feel I need to have a successful show. However, I already have a number of new works done that are pretty strong, so I'm going for it. For the next few months, I'm going to concentrate on doing larger paintings and more drawings for this show. It's really nice to have a solid goal to shoot for. Not that I don't have goals with my work otherwise, but with an exhibition looming I tend to concentrate harder on what needs to be done in the studio.

Tomorrow, I'm off to New York for the Armory Show. It's mainly an art fair for collectors and gallerists, but I like attending it to see works by contemporary artists I wouldn't ordinarily get to see in one place. That said, the Armory Show is still kind of an odd way to see art. Galleries from all over the country plus a few from Europe have booths set up in which they display artworks and possibly make sales. It's just kind of strange to see so much art stuffed into those small spaces. Every time I go, I'm always afraid I'm going to step on something I shouldn't. With so much art around, it's really easy to go into art overload. That's when it's time to head to the over-priced concession stand, grab something and find a place to eat (usually a patch of carpet, since the tables are mostly filled for the duration of the fair) and people-watch for a while. Besides the art, people-watching is next best reason to be there.

focus

Today was one of those days when things just fell into place in the studio. My focus was clear, unlike the past couple of studio days.

I'm well on my way towards finishing the six paintings I've been working on since late November. A couple of them needed more work than the others, but I'm studying the two earliest ones and am looking at making some changes. Nothing too drastic, but I see the need for improvement now that I've gotten the others to a place where they are almost there. One of the paintings in question will probably have a whole section painted out. The other one only needs minor adjustments.

I'm also looking ahead to continuing with some of the same themes, only changing the format from square to rectangular. They are going to have to be larger than the current ones (36"x 36" each), though, if my idea is going to have any chance of working. I just have to get myself into preparation mode again.

branching off

I was leafing through an old studio journal and came across something from a couple of years ago that was interesting. At the time of writing this particular entry, I was in the midst of begining the body of work that would be my focus for the past three years or so. This was when I had the space in the Goldtex Building, at 315 North 12th Street, just north of Vine Street. I was on the fifth floor on the north side of the building. From my windows I could see Anderson Hall, on Temple University's North Philly campus, where I studied art from '91-'94.

Besides some minor editing, this is the journal entry in full:
......

2.21.01

"Worked on some new pieces-new direction for a time. I was working on two small paintings for the upcoming Sketch Club show and just hit a wall with the 'bubble' images. I couldn't make them work no matter what I did. So I turned to the grid, or a variation of it. I needed something and the way I look at it, I've nothing to lose by trying something new. I'm pretty excited about the new paintings(I did four small ones and started a 4' x 4' piece based on one of the smaller works).

The geometric aspect of the new paintings doesn't feel as confinning as it used to . I thing that has to do with my emphasis on color and working with the hard edges instead of working against them. The combination of color and brushwork is used to keep the image 'moving'. I don't know if that makes sense, but there it is."

TM
......

This piece of writing has stuck with me because it represents a moment in time when my visual focus shifted pretty radically. I went from mulitilayered compositions with a lot of organic imagery to paintings that were extremely geometric and more concerned with surface effects rather than pictorial depth of field.

The only carryover from one series to the other was my love of color-how various hues played off of one another and the interaction with the surface of the canvas or panel. This was one moment of many that have continued to inform my artistic practice of not allowing one way of working to dominate my expression. When it's time to try something new, I do all I can not to question it and just go for it.

That's what I find inspiring about art, the inquiry. Where I end up is not nearly as important or sometimes even interesting as how I got there. The sensation of attempting to bring something out of the void and making it physical is an all-encompossing one. I get swept up in surges of energy and emotion while painting and I can grab onto none of them. They well up and disperse before I can even identify what I'm feeling, and I never would be able identify what it is I'm feeling exactly when this happens; it happens and then it's gone again. That's why it's impossible to answer the ridiculous question, "So, what were you feeling when you painted this?" There is never any one thing and I'm hard pressed to even recall what was going on through my head and body at the time.

Art is a big question, or part of a conversation. The best art dosen't attempt to answer anything about life. It raises questions and makes people think, while at the same time, creating a space for the viewer to enter into a dialogue with the work(s) in question and experience thier own discoveries.

struggle

Painted some yesterday(Friday) and Thursday. The studio was cold but on Thursday I elected not to turn on the heat in favor of a couple of and extra sweat shirt and hoodie under my coveralls. Yesterday, I gave in and turned the heat on. I can go a while without heat in there, but I have my breaking point.

Anyway, I've been working on this one painting for a while and it's been difficult to get through but I made some good progress with it. I've gone down so many roads with it. I'm getting to know it better, layer by layer, line by line...

I became very aware of a deep, visceral feeling in the pit of my stomach as I painted. Not a bad feeling but one similar to a ball of energy which propelled my movements. It was an experience which has really drawn me into the work more than I expected on a concsious level. I'm getting 'into' these paintings in a way that I haven't in a long while. They are much more physical than other work I've done in the past couple of years.

black, pt. 2

I like black, but as a challenge to myself I've not used it in recent paintings. The challenge I set up was to make other colors as rich and close to black without using black itself in the painting. I may use a little of it to darken a color a bit, but I havne't used straight black on the work alone. It's mainly for me because most people can't tell the difference at first. Once it's pointed out, thier perception of the piece is altered. When an area that is thought of as black is revealed to actually be a deep shade of red, it can alter how that area or even the whole piece is seen.

I've had it in my head to do a few paintings using mainly black, gray, and white but I haven't gotten around to it yet. I have done a couple of paintings in the past, both still lifes, that are composed of only black and white paint. I still have them and they are among my favorite paintings. I'd like to approach the idea again with newer images and see how it goes.

black

This afternoon, I attended a lecture given by Quentin Morris. It was held in the Morris Gallery of the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts where several of Morris's six-foot, circular canvases were hung as part of his solo exhibition.

Morris, an African-American Philadelphia native, has spent the last 40 years creating monochromatic paintings and works on paper using only black. His paintings are further distinguished by his use of six-foot, circular, rough-edged canvases. Morris uses a variety of oil and water-based media to create his works. The results are varied, depending on what kind of effect Morris is after at any given time. Some his canvases will appear to have a flat, matte finish, while one next to that will feature both matte and glossy areas. Some even look as if there are other colors present due to differences in surface textures and how certain paints or inks he uses dry.

None of that was new to me, but what was different was that the walls of the gallery where painted black, as well. Not only were the walls painted black, but Morris pointed out that each wall was a diffrent shade of black. It took me a while to make the distinctions, and I was only able to see a couple of differences. This treatment of the walls was good for the presentation of the paintings. The idea was to make the exhibition a more meditative experience for the viewer. It was his attempt to get people to "slow down" and really see the works; to counteract the fast-pace of art viewing many people seem to have. It really does work. I found myself looking at these paintings much longer than I would have had they been against a light background. With the paintings presented in this way, the gallery took on the air of a chapel or other meditative space.

I'll have to return to view the exhibition again before it closes. There werer a lot of chairs in the gallery for the talk and I wasn't in the headspace to try and ignore them. After the talk, I introduced myself and had a brief conversation with Morris. One of the things I asked him about was the reception he received from people, black and white, to his work over the years. I asked that question because it seems that African-American artists who have produced work that is outside the mythical realm of what art made by blacks "should" be-largely racial and identity-based themes revolving around religion, social issues, jazz, etc...- are seen with skeptical eyes. It's as if we are trying to put one over on everyone by daring to engage thoughtfully with the history of western art. He said that his work has received a wide range of reactions from really good to outrage. I wanted to go further into this with him, but he was scheduled to have lunch with some people from the Academy, so that conversation will have to wait for another time.

.....

I found my way to my studio later in the afternoon. It was pretty cold in there, but I chose to put on a few more layers instead of turning on the heat. It worked, but if I'd stayed longer than I did, the heat would have been turned on. I just don't want to run the bill up if I don't have to.

I did some work on one painting I've been having a difficult time with lately and still haven't gotten to a place where I felt it was heading in a good direction. I'm just trying to see what will work. I have an idea of what I want, but, so far I haven't been able to articulate it in paint yet. These new paintings are much more spontaneous and process-oriented than what I've been working on for the past couple of years. The older work was more planned out, even as I strived to achieve some sort of randomness within the rigid structures of hard-edged patterns.

I really wasn't in the mood to push on with it after four hours, so I gave it up and came home. I was extremely tired from staying up way later than I should have last night messing around with the settings on this page. I can't keep up that schedule or I'll not get anything worthwhile out of my studio time. I can't let that happen too much. I've taken enough time off during the holidays and it's time to buckle down again and get some work done. There are way too many ideas floating around in my head and I need to make more time to act on some of them.

I'm begining a new series of paintings that will probably surprise a lot of people in how they look. I've come to a point where the reductive nature of my recent work has been feeling a bit restricting.

The new paintings I've worked on over the past couple of days mark a return to a more expressive format. I'm still utilizing the striped elements and grid matrices, only now they are broken down into smaller parts and exist within fields/layers of color and brushmarks. There is a shift of perspective within these paintings. They share the same source material as the recent work: architecture and other man-made structures set in nature. Only now, the forms exist in a more ambiguous space instead of being entirely anchored in place.

I was shocked and saddend when I found out about the sudden death of fellow Philadelphia painter,
Recbecca Westcott earlier this week. I only met Rebecca once, and that was at her solo exhibition at
Spector Gallery. I only talked with her for about 10 minutes during the opening, but in those 10 minutes I managed to get a feeling for the warm, dedicated person her
friends and acquaintances knew.

R.I.P, Rebecca.

More on Rebecca Westcott:
http://www.anthem-magazine.com/region.html
http://www.newimageartgallery.com/newlywedsgiantelectric.html
http://www.angelfire.com/art2/hpfa/becky.html

Day one of the open studio was a let-down on the attendence side of things. I hope tomorrow is better. The weather was pretty shitty as it rained for most of the afternoon. Plus it was way chillier than last year. Had a good, long conversation with a fellow artist and some buddies stopped by later in the afternoon, which helped to ease the frustration of not having many visitors.

Monday night, our local PBS station, WHYY, offered a rare treat. They broadcast an hour-long documentary on one of Philadelphia's best known living artists,
Bo Bartlett in conjunciton with an exhibition of his work at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts. This event was rare because:

1. It's seldom that a local painter is featured in any program here.
2. It's rarer still that a local, living painter is given such focus.

I like Bartlett's work, despite it being somewhat sterile at times. I like figurative work, but it has to be done well and Bartlett is one of the few contemporary realist, figurative painters whom I think is good at what he does. Beyond that, I really connected with the sheer will, ambition, and determination he's cultivated to stay focused on his work. There was this connection to a very palpable 'search' going on that fuels much of my own creative endeavors and, which I suspect, is the same for other creative people.

This all relates to conversations and thoughts I've been having lately. It first came up a couple of months ago when I had a conversation with Gabrielle, one of my studio-mates. We got on the subject of the type of guy she had been dating before she met her present boyfriend. She said that it was an adjustment to getting used to someone who was so, and I'm paraphrasing, "so settled and unquestioning...someone who was happy where he was and accepted it". While on the other hand, her other relationships were with people who were creative in some way and were seemingly always searching and questioning what they were doing and the world around them.

That conversation has been with me for a while now and I've been thinking about the search I've been on as a painter. What it is I'm searching for doesn't matter; I honestly don't know what it is I'm truly after most of the time. It changes all the time. I know I'm attempting to express something; some relationship to my enviornment, some emotion/feeling, beauty, whatever...What matters is that there's this very real pull to define something which, ultimately, is undefinable to me. The act of creating, itself, is being in a constant state of questioning. Each painting I do invariably winds up leaving more quetions to be dealt with. There simply isn't an answer. The minute you begin thinking that you've found answer in your work, then what's the use of continuing to paint? There's no point in going on with it if you know the answer to what it is you have been after. Life is exactly the same way. There is no answer to the question, "What is life?" That only leads to more questions and there isn't a definitive answer to be found.

So why put myself through all of the ups and downs, self doubt and confidence, etc...? I don't know why, I just have to do what I do and I love it. It's that simple. What makes creativity worthwhile for me is knowing that I'm in an active conversation with life and ideas. You can't be passive and be creative, these are mutually exclusive. It just doesn't work. Creativity arises out of passion and for there to be passion means that you have to be engaged in life at some level. Not just thinking about it, but living, feeling, and being it.

One of the hardest things I find to do is writing a desription of what I'm doing visually. There's no way to convey what I just painted without an image. It has been interesting but ultimately a futile effort. However, without a digital camera or scanner at present, I'll have to rely on the written word when I want to talk about paintings I'm working on. It's not been that bad, just challenging.

Had a late start getting to the studio yesterday, but my time there was productive. I worked on a couple of large hand-drawn grid images on paper using graphite, charcoal and some acrylic medium. I did three, all on 22"x30" printmaking paper. The jury is still out on if they work or not, but the first two are definately better than the third. I really struggled with that one. That's good because I had to deal with some of the ptifalls of enlarging the images that have existed as 6"x6" studies. I'll try a couple more the next time I'm up there, probably Monday morning before work.


Last night was pretty good. I went out for First Friday. Saw some art, saw some eye-candy, ran into some people I know and met a couple of other artists. There were a couple of painting shows I liked: Keith Ragone at Snyderman, Joseph Marioni at Larry Becker, and Joshua Mays at Union 237.

Today was one of those days when I was really excited about what I was working on and couldn't wait to see the results of my labors. However, some things take time and the painting I was working on has some time left to work itself out. I was working with some Golden Tar Gel on a portion of a 16"x24" painting and I have to let it set for a number of hours before I can paint on top of it. That's ok, because I just went and did a bunch of small graphite and colorless oil stick grid drawings while waiting for the painting to dry. I'll get to work on it some more tomorrow morning.

I also have to call Bridgette after 11am. She wants me to talk to her about the new paintings I'm working on. She wanted me to come over to the gallery tomorrow, but I don't know if I'll have the time. I'll see.

Spent three hours last night in the studio bagging up promotional materials for the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours. It went much smoother than I thought it would. I had two out of three people come by and pick up their bags of goodies (postcards, posters, brochures and balloons). One couldn't make it and she called. It's amazing what can happen when I finally get down to having myself organized. Not that I'm never organized in the studio or elsewhere in my life, it's just that I had a lot of reservations about taking on this particular task. Now that I've tackled it, it's much less intimidating.

I certainly need to spend more time reflecting on my work. Most of the time, I go to the studio and get to work almost right away and paint until I get tired. Not a bad thing, but spending time in there last night not working on any of my projects and just looking at them made me realize that I need to make that connection more often. I'm in a very different mental state when I'm busy painting. In those times, I'm more involved with the pushing around of paint and trying to make the thing 'work' as a piece of art. Even when I've stopped painting for a particular session, I'm too tired and have been too close to it to attempt to evaluate it consciously.

That's why it's important to spend some time with the work, just looking and thinking. I've neglected that aspect of the creative process to a certain degree. It has a lot to do with wanting to get ideas out of my head as fast as I can. I paint, paint, paint then stop, go home, come back again and do it all over again. This way of working leaves little time for evaluating the work properly. So, I'm going to make more time for examining what I've done. I don't want to spend too much time on that, but it is important.

There's been a lot of time between posts here. I'm hoping to rectify that by posting a bit more, but I'm making no promises about exactly how often that will be.

Moving on...

Things are changing in my work again. Well, things are always changing but now I'm working with three distinct ideas at once. The paintings are diverging into two series. One, tentatively titled, 'Long Walls', utilizes a rectangular format with the main image close to the lower edge. They're basically a closer examination of an idea which first appeared in my painting last year. In these new paintings, there is more emphasis on the tension between the walls and the area above them. I'm not sure of how I think of the space above the walls. I keep coming back to 'sky' but it could be read as the upper corner of a ceiling; part of an interior.


The other potential series involves still utilizing the linear patterns, except I've taken to inserting a 'globule' of color in front of the patterns. Some of the shapes are transparent, while others wind up opaque. The genesis of this idea came to me while working on the postcards for the 'Dear Fleisher' benefit. I then took that idea and in one session, did nine small(12"x12") sketches on paper. Then I worked on some larger pieces on paper, using a rectangular format, both horizintally and vertically.

The particular challenge with the 2nd series lies in how I handle the edges of the organic shapes in relation to the canvas's edge. In some of the sketches I've done, I painted the globules in a less contrived and self-conscious and in others I could tell that I was certainly 'thinking' about how the edges met or didn't, in some cases. I took Amy up to see the new work and we had a conversation about this and it really got me thinking. It's always good to get a second set of eyes on the work.

I'm in the home stretch with the Philadelphia Open Studios Tour volunteering. Ed Bronstein dropped off the promotional materials at my studio this past Wednesday. There are nine boxes of brochures. They were heavy. I had to carry them up, one at a time, to the third floor landing. Taking them all the way up to the studio was out of the question. I've volunteered to be a distributor of POST materials. So, on top of my regular job, trying to get painting done and the rest of my life, I have to fit making sure people pick up their promotional materials as well. It should be ok. I have limited times that I can be at the studio, so I'll have to let everyone know when they can come to pick up things.

I'm a bit peeved about where the location of my studio wound up on the map in the brochure and on the poster. They managed to put the number marker below Market St. instead of above and on 2nd Street instead of 3rd Street, for crying out loud! Honestly, I think most people will find the studio via the printed address.

I have the makings of a new studio project in the works. As usual, the idea seemed to come out of nowhere, but It's been forming for a while now.

The first incarnation was of a rectangle, segemented into quarters, and each quarter assigned a different color. At this stage, I thought of it as a t-shirt design with possible postcard and greeting card applications. Then, it evolved into my using the 1"x3" pieces of lumber to construct multi-segmented, wall hung works which fall somewhere between painting and sculpture. They'll probably fall closer to the painting end of the spectrum, largely because of the surface treatments I have in mind. I'm planning on using stuff like wood putty, wood glue, acrylic paint, shellac and anything else that I can think of. The idea is to liberally use these materials with a lot of sanding and other means of altering the wood's appearance to come up with unique works (*sheesh*sounds like I'm writing a project proposal).

Anyway, I'll be spending the early part of Labor Day up in the studio working on this idea. I don't have to be at work until 2pm, so there's a few hours to play with. I'm really excited about the possibilities!

Today, my studio time was spent on three works on paper, each 22"x30". Continued with the new idea of using a striped elements overlaid with a transparent, organic shape. Only these are larger than the ones I did the last time. I'm still trying the idea on for size but I think I'll wind up with some paintings based on these works. I also came up with an idea for another series of paintings. Tentatively called the 'Wall Series' or 'Long Walls', the paintings I have in mind will be rectangular with 1/4 of the surface area devoted to a glossy, patterned 'wall' and the rest a matte field of color. I don't know how many I'll do, but when I get tired of it I'll stop and go on to something else.

It's a good feeling to see the emergence of new possibilities in the work. One idea leading to another. I love and treasure these fertile creative times because you never know when you'll hit that next wall and what effect it will have on you or how long it will last.

Worked on nine new works on paper this evening, all 12"x12"(paper), 9"x9"(images). The work just flowed out of me. I decided to try out this new idea of having the stripped elements overlaid with a colored, bulbous shape which obscures all but the very outside edges and corners of the colored stripes. I also used variations on the grid in some of the works along with the stripes.
I challenged myself to make each image and composition different from the last. I needed to let the first layer of paint dry before adding another layer, so while that was going on, I would immediately start work on the next piece by laying out the compostion in graphite. There was very little time between each piece which forced me to think quickly and not take too long to start the next image.

Working this way from time to time helps me with generating ideas plus I can have a fairly good idea of what might work on a larger scale. I can't wait to get some more stretchers and canvas so I can take these new ideas and expand on them.
It's funny, just earlier this week I was thinking about how I felt that I was heading towards another period of feeling 'stuck' with my work. Now, I can see several new approaches to the paintings that I didn't see before, just because I decided to stay in the studio even when I desperately wanted to do something else earlier in the session.


Brian Coty never showed up. He did leave a message just before I arrived at the studio this afternoon. He was calling from a bar and said he'd forgotten what my studio address was and hadn't written it down. Now, when I talked to him earlier, around 1-something, he said he was looking for a pen, found one and took down my address. At least I thought he did...We've been playing 'studio visit tag' for a while now and it's begining to get on my nerves. He doesn't have a phone, land line nor cell, and he can't seem to remember to keep basic information like my studio address with him. I've only met him once-at my exhibition in February but he seems to be a bit flaky (no wonder, he's one of those artists who lives in their own world, lol!) I'm by no means perfect, but if you make plans to meet up with someone, then keep the contact info with you. That's what pen, paper and pockets are for. On top of that, he said in the message that he'd "call back later". He didn't.

Needless to say, even though the original plan fell through, I was productive and that's all that counts.
 

Yesterday's studio session was the longest I've had there in a few weeks. I was there for almost 9 hours. My recent sessions have been shorter by five hours or so. Things went pretty ok. I re-worked two small canvases that turned out much better than in their previous incarnations. I'm experimenting with my works on paper but not getting anywhere yet. I need to experiment with my painting techniques a bit more, as well.

I really need to move forward with buying some wood or other hard surface material to paint on. Stretched canvas is great but I need a less flexible surface to pursue some of the work I want to do. I live right down the street from a lumber yard and have been very lazy about picking up some stuff and having them cut it down for me. Gottta get on it! Having ideas is great, but they don't do me any good if I don't do anything with them.

Speaking of ideas, here is what's been floating around my noggin for a while in various forms:

Developing a new, solid body of large and small-scale paintings. Adopting a layering technique which incorporates both solid and transparent forms in the paintings. Currently, I default to an opaque layering ideal most of the time. This isn't a bad thing, but I've found it a bit limiting as of late. Looking back at the work I produced for the exhibition this past February, the more successful pieces had some of both techniques. There is also the scale issue; how large do I want to go with the work? Currently, my largest paintings are 48" square and, lately, 36"x60" rectangular canvases. These are sizes which feel comfortable and are easy to store, ship and carry. I do want to expand the size a little but not by much.

I've been struggling with the works on paper lately. I like my drawings, etc... to stand on their own, not merely as sketches for paintings. Sometimes I use them for that purpose, but I also do things on paper that a similarity to the paintings but will never translate as paintings and aren't meant to. So, what's the issue? Well, I think it has to do with some internal need to have the works on paper directly correlate to what I'm doing on canvas. When I work on paper, I like to work with different materials than I do on canvas. This has been very beneficial as the differences in materials , oil stick and graphite on paper, gouache on paper as opposed to acrylics on canvas, force me to deal with images and ideas in completely new ways. The work on paper has taken on a life of it's own, separate from what I do on canvas which sometimes causes some conflict. The important thing, though, is that I'm working to figure it all out, with the end result being a body of work that I'm proud of.

Then there are the installation ideas which incorporate rope and hardware. The sculpture ideas using wood and hardware. The prints I want to do and it goes on and on and on...

This is why I've been feeling the sqeeze of having a job and concentrating on my artwork. Even though my job schedule allows for an abundance of studio time, it's getting hard to accomplish all that I want to do. I could just concentrate on painting,which is really what I do already, but that's not all that I am. On top of that, painting alone can't accomodate all of the ideas I have, so I need to spread them out into other areas. I can accomplish a lot with the time I have, I just need to be a little more efficient with how I use it. This just means that I may have to concentrate on one or two things for a while, then switch materials and pursue something else for a time. That's the only way I'm going to get anywhere near accomplishing all that I'd like to do while maintaining a steady paycheck. There is still the goal of being a self-sufficient artist, but until then, I guess it'll be a juggling act, with painting as the main thing I work on. Whatever, as long as I can keep working...

There is always the possibility of coming up with a project which incorporates painting, drawing, sculpture and printmaking...

One day last week, I had an interesting exchange with one of the customers at work. He comes in once in a while with his daughter. He's probably in his mid-thirties or so.

Anyway, we greet each other and he says, "Wow, you've been here for a long time. You own the place yet?" I laughed and replied, "No".

Him: "You're a manager, then, right?"
Me: "Yeah, I've been managing here for the past 9 years or so"
Him: "Man, you ought to be ready to buy the place then..."
Me: "Nah, I don't want own the store"
Him: "I understand. You can always open your own store sometime"
Me: "No, I'm not interested in owning a store. I have my own thing going on"
Him: "Oh, what's that?"
Me: "I'm an artist. I've been doing it for the past 23 years and that's what I'm concentrating on"
Him: "Yeah, well, everyone needs to have dreams."
Me: "Well, it's more than a dream for me."

I then went on to tell him some of what I've been doing lately and how my art career has been growing and so on. I spoke to him in such a way as to there not being any doubt about my chosen path and I think that surprised him a bit. There was a distinct point where he gave me this slightly puzzled look, it wasn't real obvious, but his demeaner definately changed a little, as if he couldn't understand that I'm 100% serious about being a painter. I think some people just aren't used to artists talking about thier work and careers the way people of other professions talk about theirs.

Question: "What do you do?"
Answer: "I'm a painter"

That's it. I'll tell people that I have a job, but that's never the first thing out of my mouth anymore. At one time, I was reticent to tell people that I was an artist. The reason? Well, we all know that art isn't a viable way to make a living, blah, blah, blah...why not just do it on the side, blah, blah, blah..."Well, good luck with that"(translation: "One day, you'll have to wake up and face *real* life...BLAH, BLAH, BLAH...")

Dreams really are good to have. The difference for people like me is that we are living our dreams every day. I know I am. Every day. Even when I'm not in the studio. I've been doing so for the past 23 years with and without money and will continue to do so. I'll stop doing art when I'm dead.