I've changed themes.
My first series was to think out issues in my work history. I've moved onto romance. This is basically a portrait through
symbols. Like the first series, all of
the images are specific to me, and I made the painting for my own reasons, but
now that it's done I'm curious what other people think of it. Bro2 walked in my house the other day and burst out laughing at Darth Vader.
It would portray "rainbow" better if all the
Trivial Pursuits wedges were in it, but that wasn't the point. And maybe it would be more rainbow-like if
it weren't so black, but obviously wasn't the point either. It has all the rainbow colors and a prism,
so it counts.
All of these paintings have a pretty limited
palette. Two hues each of red, yellow,
green, blue, and brown. One hue each of
black, white, orange, and metallic gold.
I could do it with less if I had to, but I don't see a point in making
life harder. The quality of the acrylic
paints are both expensive and cheap. My
favorite brush cost $1. I had to break
open a new one for this painting because I wore out a couple on the last
series.
I met a friend for lunch and took the painting with me. I propped it on the wall of our booth and we
talked about it and other things. The
waitress came and went quite a few times before she asked why we had Darth
Vader. My friend told her I had painted
it.
"Wow! I can't
paint a straight line. I don't have any
talent (imagine much more along these lines...), but this is great! It's like as good as you can buy at Hobby Lobby!
I give my friend credit.
She didn't burst into laughter until we left the restaurant. For those of you who don't know about Hobby
Lobby, it's a store that sells really cheap arts and crafts stuff and fought against
women's access to contraceptives because of the owner's Southern Baptist
religious beliefs. They were also fined
$3,000,000 for smuggling religious artifacts from Iraq and Caesarea and ordered
to return the items. I won't shop at
this store no matter how cheap their stuff is.
While I bemoan the fact that too many people are like the
waitress and don't get the difference between a Chinese printed image on sale
for $9.99 and a real painting, I do appreciate the compliment. I'll probably always remember it (and
laugh).
This incident reminds me of another time with another woman
whom I had shown a painting. I asked
her how much she thought I should charge for it. She said $20. I asked her
how much she earned per hour and how many hours did she think I'd put in the
painting? Didn't matter. "I can buy a real print by a famous
artist from the store for $20. I was
giving you a compliment!"
Thanks. I appreciate
compliments, I really do. I'd like some
money too.
But for all that, I haven't been painting these for the
money (though I'd sell them if anyone gave me a good enough offer). They are visual reminders and meditations of
lessons I've learned. I feel lighter every
time I finish one. I'm going to keep
making them and looking for the rainbows within.
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| To give you a sense of the scale of this 16" x 20" painting, that stamp is smaller than the USPS stamp of Andrew Wyeth's "Christina's World" |
