Gather Your Thoughts - Goes Big

Up above is Gather Your Thoughts 2008 8x10 inches. Below is going to be the large version 48x60 inches with some places reworked and others explored further.

All and all a fairly productive weekend. I started three paintings and I am pretty far along with two of them. I started the big one and wasn't sure what I wanted to do. I worked through some sketches. I little bit of it was figuring out how to address the rivets and a few interesting areas of the under painting. I decided looking through my sketchbook that Gather Your Thoughts was the right direction to go. I have many smaller paintings that I have been meaning to turn into much larger works. I guess that's one of the best arguments to do small works - they're a great arena to work with ideas before going to the really big canvases. I also like the fact that they are more affordable for the general public.

I believe very strongly that art should be for everyone. I know I was told back in art school by one of my painting professors that "we are elitists and our work is for the elite by that very fact". Well, I disagree and I think it's a shame to hear people say to me that "they don't know anything about art, so they can't say if a painting is good or not". Do you like it? Can you except it as art even if you don't? Well, thats all you need to know. Trust me I'm not moved by the majority of the art out there I see and why should it be any different for anyone else?

I know many friends that express that they don't feel comfortable with going to museums and galleries. At the same time they wouldn't think twice about going to a concert. I don't know where this disconnect starts or all the causes of it. I do know there is definitely a lack of arts education within our schools and a association with social class within films and television shows. Maybe, that's the root of it and once the seed is planted it's hard to shake people's paradigms.