I sometimes feel that my work is easily overlooked because of my subject matter
I’m a representational painter working mostly in landscapes. More specifically, I paint landscapes that are familiar to me. So, I paint a lot of rural scenes, small towns, and gardens in the Potomac Highlands and Shenandoah Valley.
In the most negative appraisal, I’m painting puff-pieces that are easy to dismiss. An artist friend recently told me my work has a “Hallmark” quality about it; she quickly added that she did not mean that in a negative sense, but… that word still hangs there.
I wonder, to gain artistic street-cred, what do I do? Do I start creating non-representational works? Do I use a lot of drab colors to impart a serious mood?
And then I drive back from Winchester, and see a house along the road that reminds me to hold course and keep doing what I’m doing.
I’m a very intuitive painter when it comes to identifying painting subjects. I call them “glimmers,” flashes of insight that I see out of the corner of my eye. Glimmers often are caused by strong contrasts, like darks against bright areas, or rigid geometries juxtaposed against organic shapes. But in addition to visual appeal, there’s an emotional response, too. These are the inspirations that I find difficult to articulate. I just feel a certain way when looking at them.
I’m using a recent small watercolor called “Refuge,” to illustrate my point. I won’t identify the exact location, but it’s in Hardy County, W.Va., and you can see some of the contrasts that attract my attention: the glow of the light against the white siding, the way the large maple seems to spring from the house.
As for the emotional content, to me, it’s as if the house is the source of the scene’s energy. Again, I don’t know how to explain these feelings well, so I apologize for the poor attempt. But basically, this humble house is more than it seems, and that relates to everything I know from my childhood in rural West Virginia. I feel quiet resolve and determination, and feel the potential for growth.
Someone else might feel differently, but I think there’s going to be at least a tiny bit of common ground between us, especially if there’s some place vaguely like this in that person’s life history.
Now, how does this painting relate to my “Hallmark” problem?
On the surface, it feeds into it. It’s a “pretty” scene, but I think it’s pretty in a different way. It’s not a grand vista, or a sublime atmosphere. It’s small and simple. It’s the kind of place we drive by all the time and think little about.
However, even though it’s a painting of a specific house in a specific place, I believe that this scene can conjure emotions and highlight that bit of common ground in our feelings. I first had to distill these visual characteristics into a painting, because otherwise whatever it is that triggers these feelings is easy to miss it, but now, in this format, I hope some faint emotions might be quietly stirred.
And as for the house on the road from Winchester that reminded me to stick to my path and keep painting my “Hallmark” scenes…. it’s not this house. It’s another house, in another county, in another state, but visually, it’s a near-perfect match for the one in the painting. And by noticing that, I was reminded that the specific can be general, and that my feelings might not be mine alone.