Why Paint, Anyway?

Everyone now and then, the thought comes up: Why am I painting? Is it a useful enterprise, does the work involved ever add up to anything worthwhile? What is this for, anyway?

The larger art world often seems to marginalize painting in a variety of obvious and not-so-obvious ways--favoring video, performance, installation, photography, and so on.

Will the major Whitney Biennial include even one painting? What about the minor Portland Museum of Art Biennial?

“If you hear a voice within you say you cannot paint, then by all means paint and that voice will be silenced.” ― Vincent Van Gogh

It's just like Van Gogh to state the obvious truth in the simplest way. There are many reasons not to paint out there, none of them matter.

Acorn Squash, oil on wood, 2014 

Three Answers to the question: Why do I paint? 

1.  Because I need to. I need the time alone with a couple of ideas and my paint kit. When I don't paint, I am not happy. The results can vary, the results are not often up to what my imagination can create, but the time comes along every now and then when an artwork takes on a life of its own and exists as a magical perfect moment in time. Those times keep me going, as does the sense of slow forward progression threaded through the many paintings absorbing my attention from day to day.

2. Because I don't know how to do anything else.

3.  Because it's so difficult and complicated that it take a large amount of attention over the course of many years to begin to get to a decent skill level, thereby allowing a glimpse at the next skill level way down the road to work towards. Therefor, it's worth the lifetime pursuit required and keeps my interest intact.

Comments from Facebook friends!

4. I've got all these art supplies. They will just go to waste if I don't use them.  Mark H
5.  It is the best form of meditation!  Harriet G.

I recommend that you embrace this inspirational quotation from Brihadaranyaka Upanishad: “You are what your deep, driving desire is. As you desire it, so is your will. As you will it, so is your deed. As your deed is, so is your destiny.”