Things to do Today

1. Take 15 year old cat to the vet for follow-up (possible feline leukemia)
2. Random errands: grocery store, bank, tobacco store, drug store
3. Pick up "Masked and Anonymous" at the DVD store
3. Try not to think about cat
4. Prep for the RLA's show

This time tomorrow we'll be out in the street, hawking art. Working as an artist is dancing the tightrope of constant rejection. I'd say that is particularly true of the RLA's work, which has gone in this past year, from photo-realism to a surreal jazzy sort of dreamscape. Will the audience be able to relate to it? Will the audience buy it? Is it too far removed from the literal to be accepted by the crowds at a street show? Will it sell?
I don't think that any of that matters to the RLA. He is true to his art and his vision, in what ever direction it takes him. Sell or not sell, it doesn't have any influence in how he wields his brush. It's one of the things I love the most about him.

Because I work, and have always worked, in the realm of the corporation, my graphic design work is, well, safe. It is clean and easy to read/understand. I use paper with a nice tactile element, type faces that are well-designed and highly legible. I would even go so far as to say that my style is no style. That is to say, I have no identifiable style. Whatever is best for the client and the job at hand is what I do. Graphic design-wise, I am a ghost.

My fiber work is just as safe and commercially marketable. Is this shallow? Is this bad? I don't know. There are times when it makes me feel like less of an artist, but is that insecurity or valid self-criticism? Again, I don't know. I know that I can make things that I like, and that stretch me as a craftsman, and people will buy them. But I never stretch too far. I never take that leap that the RLA can take, off the edge and into the unknown.

For me, the bottom line is always the bottom line. That's why he's an artist, and I'm just an artisan.