Future Vision?

I was recently reminded of my grandfather's good friend, Alan Dunn. For over twenty years, Dunn was a very successful cartoonist for New Yorker and known for his sophisticated humor and coarse charcoal drawing style. My grandfather told me about Dunn's other side. He and Dunn would go on watercolor expeditions. He knew that Dunn deeply wished to also be know for his watercolor paintings. His watercolor work was exquisite and subtle, having little in common with his cartoon work. The public wasn't interested in the watercolors. They wanted what they expected from Dunn and nothing else.

On the other hand Picasso was able to work in several visual languages a time and find an audience for them all.

It is fascinating, and frustrating. There are no hard and fast rules in what makes art appealing to an audience.

I hope that learning my craft, doing the best work I know how, and being true to my vision will bring coherence to my body of work. I do have to make choices in the subject and approach. That means choosing some things over others in order to consciously guide where that body of work is going.

I wish I could say that that conviction is leading me to a solid vision of what that body of work will look like in the future. It does not. But that is part of adventure. And whether the market will be embrace or reject the work - well, I will do everything that I know how to let the world know my work it there. The rest is in God's hands.