I have a large painting on the easel I want to get to this morning. It’s at a point of transformation which is always exciting and just looking at it now, I am eager to see where it goes. But I wanted to share a post from back in 2012 about a painting done in 1997 or 1998 that has occupied an important place in my heart and mind for a long time. I think it’s a good example of the how an artist’s work often lives with the artist after it has found a new home.
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I was going to write about something different but came across this older image and completely lost my train of thought, this piece replacing everything that I had been thinking. Some pieces have that effect. It’s a smaller painting, maybe 6″ square, that sold many years ago when I was first showing my work at the Principle Gallery in the mid-1990’s. Though not large, this painting has lived in a larger sense in my thoughts ever since.
It’s titled Beauty Scorned and is a relatively simple piece. But there’s something in the washed out quality of the colors and in the the bend of the twisting tree trunk that really speaks to me in a very poignant way, as though it is a pure physical expression of some deep emotion.
Beauty and sorrow.
For me, I see this as being about perceptions of beauty and acceptance. About how we often conform, like the other trees which are so much alike here, and step back from that which is different, seeing not the beauty in it but scorning it because it is unlike us.
The beauty is in its difference.
I remember when I did this piece, feeling that this was symbolic of my own work at that time. It was often quite different from the work of other painters with which I showed and I was still unsure of the validity of my own voice, often feeling that my work was somehow inferior because it wasn’t painted in the same manner, didn’t have the same look as these others. At the time, I felt like my work and my voice was truly tied to this twisting tree and those who dismissed it because it had a different look were missing the beauty and emotion that it may hold.
Just seeing it again summons all of these thoughts in a rush of feeling. It remains a potent piece for me for this reason. It also has a sad memory in it. When I see this piece I am always reminded of the couple who purchased it and were avid and encouraging collectors that I always looked forward to seeing at shows. They had a knack for choosing work to which I was most keenly attached. This couple later divorced and the wife would still come to the shows, always so happy for and encouraging of my work. Tragically, she passed away in a plane crash this past year [2012] and now, instead of seeing the scorning of beauty in this piece as I once did, I now see the beauty of this young lady’s spirit.
It’s a different painting for me now but no less potent.
Redtree Times 
When you have a minute, you might appreciate this photographer’s post about our tendency to make comparisons. I finally commented there after nearly a month of reading and re-reading it. There’s a lot of truth in it for us all.
Thanks for the article, Linda. It should be a must read for young artists, writers and musicians. That idea of comparing yourself is a major stumbling block for anyone in any of the creative fields. It certainly echoes many of the things I have observed and learned over the years.
I used to go into galleries and museum and be depressed because my work didn’t look like the work I was seeing there. I thought because my work was different it was not worthy. When I had my exhibit at the Fenimore Museum in 2012, it was hung in a gallery next to their main gallery that was featuring American Impressionists (Mary Cassatt and Childe Hassam, for example) along with a Monet. The first time I visited the museum while the show was hung and saw the neighboring exhibit, I asked myself,” Why me?”
But after a while I visited again. I had studied the Impressionist show and had also witnessed the strong reaction to my own work. I began to then ask, “Why not me?” What made their voices any more valid than my own? Wasn’t I just trying to express myself in my own voice much like they were in their time? Thinking about it in those terms made a big difference for me and I no longer find myself comparing myself to others. They do what they do and I do what I do and so long as I know that I am being honest in my expression, then I am perfectly satisfied with where I am.