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June 04, 2008
Part II
I don't think this one turned out quite as well as the first, but the point is to have fun and play with the gouache, not to create my be-all, end-all masterpiece (though that would be nice too). I do want to do more of these, but I'm trying to figure out how to do to flowers what Georgia O'Keeffe and Robert Mapplethorpe do to flowers, not what 95 year old Gladys does to flowers during her Sunday watercolor sessions. I think one of the most gratifying things, as an artist, has been when people have talked to me about my work and said something along the lines of "I don't know why, but this painting makes me feel really x y z" With x y z being some odd sensation, emotion, or memory. Because it is really validating to know that the thing I am thinking about, obsessing about, concentrating on emotionally, is the thing that comes across in my work regardless of whether it's a landscape, a figure, or something entirely abstract.