Thinking about the Imagination

I recently found an enthusiastic buyer for an image that has found many admirers. It has reminded me that when you make images that relate to life, people will be attracted to them. The crazy art world appeals to ideas that people have about what art is "supposed" to be, but art that explores life (in contrast) takes its meaning from several places, all of which are authentic.

First it takes some of its meaning from life. If you observe the world, you discover the meanings that inhere in real things. So a still life of food has the meanings that food has -- nurture, pleasure, providence, sensuality (it depends upon the character of the image, does it not, what kind of feeling-tone will affix itself to the image). The second place where meaning enters is in the visual character of the thing, whether it is light or dark, richly colored or muted, crisply delineated or adumbrated, large or small, busy or simple, and so on. All the myriad qualities that can characterize something each bring forth different sensibilities. And the third place where meaning enters is from the spectator's personal associations with the image, the ways that it connects to an individual life -- perhaps quite arbitrarily -- whether it is the artist's life or somebody else's.

Art that does connect in this way really begins to have a life of its own. If in addition to all these things, the image is crafted with mastery -- well, maybe it becomes a great work of art.

We're recently experiencing a crisis in the real estate industry that has begun to spill over into related businesses. It's causing some uncertainly in the markets. I suppose that means that real art is a particularly good investment now. Of course, great art is always a good investment. People have trouble trying to sort out what "great art" is. (Hint: it's not the stuff you see in the trendy museums, the stuff you stand in front of, scratching your head wondering what it is).

If an image draws you in, if it is somehow incredibly beautiful, if it has meaning that deepens the more you think about it, if it is skillful and not ordinary, and yet can speak to ordinary life -- the chances are quite good that it's "the real deal," real art, maybe great art.

I'm certainly trying to make my pictures ones that collectors will profit by owning. When my work appreciates in value, it will benefit the collector and me together. But the first profit I wish to see from it is an increase in its meaningfulness.

Art ought to really matter. Real art does really matter. And that's what makes it real.