Vincent Van Gogh- Memory of the Garden at Etten 1888
*******************
My aim in life is to make pictures and drawings, as many and as well as I can; then, at the end of my life… looking back with love and tender regret, and thinking, ‘Oh, the pictures I might have made!’ But this does not exclude making what is possible…
–Vincent Van Gogh
*******************
Love this painting from Vincent Van Gogh with its wonderful color and the abstraction of the forms that comes from eliminating the horizon line. It was a piece that came to mind when I ran across this passage from Van Gogh. The words reminded me of something else, a thought that has been on my mind in recent times.
I was asked at my Gallery Talk at the Principle Gallery this past September if I ever had thoughts of retiring from my painting career. I think I made a bit of a joke about it, saying that I would no doubt die working away at a painting.
And that’s most likely true. I couldn’t imagine ever saying I am done as a painter.
It goes back to Van Gogh’s words above. I still see my artistic future brighter than my past, still envision important projects and better works to come. I still see my best work as being in the future, not dwelling in the distant past.
I can’t imagine that feeling ever changing. I can see myself on the day of my death, if I am capable of taking a moment to reflect on that day, will have that same regret that Van Gogh expressed: Oh, the pictures I might have made!
That being said, I must get to work. I am not retired yet and there are pictures to be made. The future is calling.
Redtree Times 
I’m not at the end of my life, but just this morning I was looking back over the past couple of years and thinking, “I’m just going to shut down Lagniappe and stop with this photography business.” I was thinking, “Oh, the picutres I might have made if only I’d had different lenses, money to travel to exotic places with dramatic landscapes, etc., ad nauseum.” But then there’s that line: “this does not exclude making what is possible.” Smart man, that Van Gogh.
You retire from a job. I get the feeling that painting is your vocation, which is not anywhere near the same thing.
True…