ArtPrize 2015

What makes art good? What makes art memorable or touching? Deep or connected to the inner soul of the artist and the admirer? Is it size? Is it controversial by nature or just curious for the sake of shock? Is it religious in experience for both the creator and the observer?

 

What makes good art?

 

In my 6th year entering ArtPrize, I have never lost site of my original intent. My intent is complicated to explain…but I can say what I DO NOT expect in these adventures. I do not expect to win. I do not expect fortune. I do not expect understanding in my work. I just come to ArtPrize to be free and paint.

In the past several years, I have entered some very large paintings. All murals. Some intended for permanent display, and others meant to be broken into pieces and scattered around the world.

 

With each year the level of difficulty for myself raised with the intention of a personal challenge in making something to impress even me. Not easy to do, but I did manage to do this twice in the past five contests. With these challenges goes a level of concentration and energy I wish to save this year for a much bigger idea I have brewing….

For this year’s event, I will be entering a very small painting. Perhaps the smallest painting ever done at ArtPrize. I would have to research that but regardless, this will the smallest painting I have ever done in my twenty years of professionally painting.

During the past several months through the process of signing up for the contest, looking at venues, and ultimately finding a venue, I have thought very little about what I would paint. I wanted that to just….flow.

I have reached an idea that is seeming to stick. And this is my painting for ArtPrize this year…. A little Lincoln.

Don’t vote for me. I really am not concerned with the competition. I am more interested in the effect my work might have on just a few patrons this year. Not thousands. Just a few drops of water can have just as much power as an ocean of opinion. It just takes a little more time to create a flow eroded effect on the land. The landscape is Grand Rapids, the flow is me, the water is the audience, and creative exchanges of ideas will abound.

May all the artists have a blast this year.