Now and Then

 

"Now and Then" is an older painting of mine, done in about 1995, before many of y'all were born.  It has a very important place in my growth and I thought I'd discuss it here.

In '95, I was still in the Navy and stationed in Maryland.  I was taking a night painting class at the Maryland Institute College of Art in Baltimore.  The teacher gave us a homework assignment of painting a still life.  Since I'd been painting for many years at that point, I didn't think it would be very challenging.  Actually creating the painting wasn't difficult.  I piled a bunch of things onto a table, moved things around, tossed things out, added something every now and then, and kept whittling away until the only things left were my Navy hat and my ancient teddy bear.  The contrast in colors, values, and textures appealed to me: lots of harsh blacks and whites and hard-edge lines in the hat, compared with soft textures and warm colors in the bear.  

At the next class, we set our homework assignments up against the wall and everybody critiqued everybody else's work.  When they got to mine, it got a lot of emotional response.  One of the students said it was about a father who had gone off to war and wasn't coming back and the kid was going to grow up without a father.  I was looking at them thinking "umm ... it's just a still life ...".  I was really taken aback.

However, the big lesson at the time was that I can't control the story the viewers see in my work.  They come to it with their own background, history, mental associations, prejudices, likes, and dislikes, all of which have nothing to do with me.  All I can do is tell my story as best I can.  Maybe suggest a particular line of thought, but that's about it.  They'll see what they're going to see.

There was another lesson quite some time later.  Eventually, I realized that my choice of the hat and teddy bear wasn't random.  Something in me specifically chose those two items.  It's a self-portait done with two of my possessions.

These two lessons have affected every piece of art I look at now, and every piece of art I make.