So, you sold some paintings...

What's next?

When I began Substack, I emailed the posts to all of you who had subscribed to my FASO Newsletter. I imported that email newsletter list of subscribers because you had all voluntarily signed up to receive that mailing. I hoped that if you had been open to those mailings, that you wouldn’t mind receiving what I think is a better platform for the purpose of sharing thoughts about painting and life as a painter, instead. You had the option to unsubscribe from it at anytime, many did, many joined in. Thank you if you stayed!

“So why did I just receive a FASO Newsletter again???”… you may ask.

I’ll get to that, eventually…

Substack is at it’s best as a place for sharing the written word, and so many do. Including my lovely partner, Dottie T. Leatherwood, and her “Capturing Life in Paint” Substack publication, which you really should read because she really can write! She writes, and paints, like a poet.

In thinking about what I write here, I realize that I’m a bit more of a utilitarian sort of a poster/writer. “Just the facts, ma’am… just the facts…” . That old Joe Friday quote from Dragnet has stuck with me forever because I’ve always been that sort of a person. Beginning with a background in biology, ornithology, and painting the facts of the birds and animals that I painted and illustrated for years, I mean… all the “facts” … hardly left me with much of an alternative. As a painter, this personality has followed me my entire career. I’m now hard pressed to veer very far from the glorious beauty that Mother Nature presents anytime I’m out from under the manmade confines of a roof. It’s just too damn beautiful in my eyes to shred it up into abstracted, smooshy little bits and pieces that don’t really communicate just how gorgeous I see it all to be.

I love paint on a surface, and it’s abstracted presentation of reality. Looking at it, and applying it is a visceral, sensual, hypnotic pleasure that I can’t imagine not knowing. How that’s used and appreciated, is personal taste, which we all have. I’ve tried throwing things at a canvas without regard to “what it is”, I can’t do it. I feel EMPTY … [def… lacking reality, substance, meaning, or value : HOLLOW (an empty pleasure) ] … with every attempt to break out of my way of seeing life.

There is a lot of chat and writing out there about how we should break out of our shell and do something new, stop painting things that look like things. The dogma comes across as if I’m, as if we are all, expected to do that to be valid!? No, when I do that I feel the definition of ‘empty’ in spades. We’re supposed to find out who we are, before we die, and be that person, right? Although that’s a life long process for some of us, I can’t ignore that I paint in a more factual based way, hopefully with some artistic aesthetic as a balance to those facts. In all of my work, Mother Nature is honored. But I hope that an “artistic sensibility” enters into the paintings to affect those natural facts, dosed with pictorial aesthetics… the Poetry of it all. I believe that is my goal, my work. That’s just my take on it, and we are all entitled to our own “take on it”.

I’m way off track here… Anyway, I opted to use my old FASO Newsletter platform to share the Summer’s Coming Sale that I am currently running because I don’t feel like that’s the kind of thing that Substack is best suited for. Substack is such a beautiful place to read other’s thoughts and musings, not necessarily a place to see a sale presented.

So there, that’s my thought… finally!

Below is a short little clip from what I’m currently in the middle of doing in the studio. Once these little studies are sold, the real work begins. My point in all of this is to first say THANK YOU to everyone who picked up a little study in my Summer’s Coming Sale on Big Cartel. I’ve been overwhelmed by your response and am truly grateful for your collecting one, or more, of my little studies. I just uploaded more work a couple of days ago and will be going through this process again in about a week. One reason for the delay in shipping is that some of these sketches might not be fully dry, not dry enough to pack up to ship. So I wait to be sure that they are all ready to go before shipping them off. They’re my babies and about to be sent off into the world to live on your wall. I want them to be ready for a safe journey!

Thank you again to everyone who bought one of these paintings.

Keep your brushes wet!

Cheers,

Marc