Some of my readers may have wondered why I have not been forthcoming with an entry the last few days. It is because my time has been taken up not only with dental work (which is now done, I hope) but with a lot of art for my day job at Trader Joe's. Our store is doing a lot of sign renovation and I have been kept busy with signs for fruit, vegetables and wine. Signs hang from the ceiling to guide customers to their favorites, and in the last week I've painted, or rather lettered and embellished, plenty of them.

They are done on wood plaques or boards. For some of them, a color base coat is added over a white primer coat. This is done by one of my co-workers, and then I do the writing and decoration. Others are just left plain wood-grain, primed with a sealer coat to keep the paint from being absorbed. The paint is applied not by brush but with opaque acrylic markers, an excellent artist's material which has only appeared in the last decade or so.

Here is an example of one of my produce signs. It's painted on both sides, in acrylic markers on wood. It's about two feet wide, one of a series of four.

And here are two of my wine signs. Spray paint over wood plaque, writing and decoration by acrylic markers, here mostly in metallic colors. Each plaque is about 18 inches wide. These are two of a series of eight, painted on both sides.

Regarding art, I have once again been asked the baffling question why I don't paint more "serious" or "profound" art. I guess vegetables and fruits are not profound, unless they are painted by Cezanne. Honestly, even after all this time, I don't know what counts as "serious" art. The art world is so filled with styles, genres, criticism, and trends that I have no idea where the "serious" stuff is any more. Things that made sense in Cezanne's nineteenth century don't make much sense in our twenty-first. If I'm a "true artist," how do I know what to paint next?

I've done a lot of soul-searching about this. "Do what I like" is not enough of an answer. I like doing a lot of different kinds of art, from architectural studies to geometric abstraction to graphic novels to "traditional" fantasy art. So you know what I concluded? The art I do next is the one I am going to get money for. Sounds totally crass, I suppose, to the "pure" artists who don't care whether their pictures sell. But for me, art is what someone pays for. I suspect a lot of other artists feel that way but may not say it for fear of sounding low or grubby. But if I have a commissioned work with a client waiting to pay me when it's done, that's what I will work on. (Commissioned work, coming this spring…watch this space.) As for the gourmet store: make the sign, drink the wine, but not at the same time.

Posted at 2:43 am | link