There are a lot of art work that I just can’t stop loving. I have a catholic taste in art, allowing me to enjoy so called realism, impressionism, surrealism, folk art-outsider art, and actually the isms just don’t matter to me. I also like illustration art.
I am an Andrew Wyeth fan. I am certain I will love Christina's World for the rest of my life. http://www.michaelarnoldart.com/christinas_world.jpg
I am powerfully moved by the work of Jack Unruh. http://www.jackunruh.com/home.html My father was a commercial artist (not an illustrator) but because ads were so important to my dad, I grew up loving illustrators.
In my opinion Brad Holland is just a wonderful illustrator http://www.bradholland.net/
The best artist I ever met personally is D.J. Lafon
http://www.askart.com/askart/l/dee_j_lafon/dee_j_lafon.aspx Lafon was head of the art department at East Central University in Ada, Oklahoma. I took a large landscape to his home and he gave me some insights from what he observed.
It is somewhat odd that I would like illustrators since I have such an aversion to creating paintings or drawings requested by other people. I recall Andrew Wyeth painted a picture of Eisenhower http://collectionsonline.lacma.org/MWEBimages/aa_mm/thumb/M64_67.JPG as a cover for Time magazine. The act was so unpleasant to him that he never took another illustrator’s job.
Years later Andrew Wyeth’s son, Jamie Wyeth http://www.jamiewyeth.com/ was commissioned by the Kennedy family to do a portrait of John F. Kennedy http://artsedge.kennedy-center.org/exploring/ballet/nw/images/wy_works/Portrait-of-JFK_300.jpg a work I find wonderful, but it was rejected by the Kennedy Family.
I have taken commissions from time to time. I have done cover illustrations for publications produced by some organization I was associated with, but I have never felt good about a requested art work. I imagine my low self-esteem has something to do with it. I have no problem selling a painting. If someone sees something I have done and they would like to have it, well, it is for sale. I’m getting a storage problem so selling my work is needed to free up space for new work.
But if someone asks for a painting I feel like I have to please the buyer before I start. I am not painting something that pleases me, I am trying to guess what someone else will like, and if I fail to guess what they wanted, well, I failed.
I have enough failure in my life. I don’t need to put myself in situations where I am open to criticism and rejection. I suppose I should “man-up.” I need to grow a spine. I need to be compassionate to myself and if someone wants to call me a failure I need to tell them to go screw themselves.
So, while I hate painting assignments, I still admire illustrations. It turns out that the fine art, and folk art that I like the most has an illustrator sense about them.
I don’t just like lines on a page, or dabs, and washes and smears of color. It is not the competence of an artist’s skill that draws me to their work, it is a work of art that says something to me. I don’t have to know the story that was in the artist’s mind, I just want to be intrigued.
The late Alan E. Cober http://www.letralia.com/ciudad/yusti/imagenes/mente.jpg thrills me.
I’ve loved the works of Franklin McMahon http://i.telegraph.co.uk/telegraph/multimedia/archive/01185/arts-graphics-2008_1185467a.jpg
There are millions of skilled artists competent in their work, but regardless of their ability, the work resonates with me when the work is more than good painting, more than skilled drawing, more than accomplished technicians in photography, or collage, or whatever else they are doing. The work has to contain something more than the visual. The art I admire most is art that contains some trace of the living being that created it.
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