indigo pears

This is a letter which came to my e-mail last week.
I love these twice weekly letters encouraging us as artists!

Dear Lila,

Because this is a bit personal, I'm not using their real names. They're both about 40 years old.


"Jack" got a BFA and then an MFA from a Midwestern University. He's visited many of the major contemporary art museums and follows the work of several "important" contemporary painters. He's written articles on Philip Guston and others. He subscribes to several art magazines and is "the most knowledgeable art-guy in any discussion." After university he worked for a while in a commercial art gallery. He sometimes writes me long, well-informed letters. He's painted eleven large paintings (two unfinished) since leaving school. He's not represented by any gallery. He thinks you need to move to New York and "get lucky" with a dealer who "really represents you."


"Jill" took two years of art school and then quit. She pays little attention to other artists. She subscribes to no art magazines but has taken several workshops. Her hobbies include bowling and travelling. At one time she also worked in a commercial art gallery. On two or three occasions she's written to me. She's painted "approximately two thousand paintings" since leaving school. She's represented by four commercial galleries in four, well-separated mid-sized cities.

There's a great story in David Bayles and Ted Orland's Art and Fear. Here it is:

"The ceramics teacher announced on opening day that he was dividing the class into two groups. All those on the left side of the studio, he said, would be graded solely on the quantity of the work they produced, all those on the right solely on its quality. His procedure was simple: On the final day of class he would bring in his bathroom scales and weigh the work in the "quantity" group: fifty pounds of pots rated an "A", forty pounds a "B" and so on. Those being graded on "quality," however, needed to produce only one pot--albeit a perfect one--to get an "A". Well, came grading time and a curious fact emerged: the works of the highest quality were all produced by the group being graded for quantity. It seems that while the "quantity" group was busy turning out piles of work--and learning from their mistakes--the "quality" group had sat theorizing about perfection, and in the end had little more to show for their efforts than grandiose theories and a pile of dead clay."

Best regards,

Robert Genn

(click on his last name for a link to more of this letter and to his web page! You can also subscribe to these from his page!)

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I personally am relieved at the outcome of the election yesterday.  We voted early before a trip to Georgia to see our grandchildren.
On the way home yesterday, we passed through a very rural and scenic area of our Ozarks.  There, along the side of the road was small white community building with the sign, VOTE HERE . Cars had filled the small parking lot and parked across the road too.  It was a wonderful sight to see them coming and going to be able to cast their votes!  My state did not "GO" for my candidate, but I feel that my vote counts, part of the "popular" vote and no doubt adds to the positive energy of our country!

Now off to watch a painting video.....watercolor lesson by Shirley Trevena!