I had one of those wake-up moments this week and realized I've been fixated on pinning down my "style" for the last few years - ever since I opened my studio. There's this idea floating out there that an artist, to be commercially sucessful, must have a recognizable style.
Picasso not withstanding, this is probably true.
But as somebody who has played with "styles" practically my whole life, it seems a little confining. And lately, kind of suffocating.
I've been reading John Carlson's masterpiece book (Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting), and I found a passage about style that made sense to me.
"The style in painting, as in writing, is spontaneously developed. You can use "thick" paint or "thin" paint; you can "stain" your canvas according to your personal feeling about it. It is what you are going to "say" on the canvas that is all important, not how you are going to put on the paint or handle the thing."
Picasso not withstanding, this is probably true.
But as somebody who has played with "styles" practically my whole life, it seems a little confining. And lately, kind of suffocating.
I've been reading John Carlson's masterpiece book (Carlson's Guide to Landscape Painting), and I found a passage about style that made sense to me.
"The style in painting, as in writing, is spontaneously developed. You can use "thick" paint or "thin" paint; you can "stain" your canvas according to your personal feeling about it. It is what you are going to "say" on the canvas that is all important, not how you are going to put on the paint or handle the thing."
When I read this I felt a great weight come off of me. I looked around at my bright, ultra detailed watercolors, my monochromatic, soft-edged landscapes. And they all look like me.
I guess somebody will have to sort out my "style" later : )
