Ideas, What to do with Them?

Last time I told you about winter here.

I must confess that I probably do love winter more than I let on. The time is visually awesome. A wonderland of freshness.

In nature many creatures hide and wait out the cold, some fly away, doing the same. Even in the human experience, we have given a name to those who migrate to warmer climes. Snowbirds we call them.

There must be a name for those who stay during winter but i dont know what it is. Someone said, Sunbirds… I suppose that makes as much sense as the Snowbirds name, but it doesn’t sound like that good a description to me.

I've never been able to "go where the weather suits my clothes." So, I ride out the winters, and mostly enjoy the view from inside a warm place. Actually, my new studio has a beautiful view of my neighborhood from two stories up. And that, I do love.

So many things goin on out there, cars in motion, school busses morning and afternoon, dogs and people walking each other. Amazon, UPS, and FedEx trucks all day an night. Views of majestic trees, standing tall beyond the houses, reaching up to touch the western sky. Cloudy days, blue skies and beautiful sunsets come and go, like the background in some five act play.

Its all delightful… and distracting. Should I be inspired? Are any of these… subjects to paint? For me? Now anyone who has followed my work has seen that the vast majority of my work, in the last fourteen years, has been in the abstract, and I've felt comfortable doing that.

There are times when I have desires, even urges, to do representational paintings. I even have some of those images filed in my head. Not that I've done anything with them… yet. And this brings me to my question. Is an abstract artist restricted to non-objective work only?

I know, amongst artists, there can be… what shall i call it? Snobbery? I am talking about the attitude of superiority that distains the practice of the other. Painters who are abstract artists, looking down on realism might say, "So take a photo… big deal?" Or realists poo-poo-ing the art of abstraction, like you've heard the remark… " My six year old could do that!"