Lust for Life

(click on image to enlarge)

After about six months I finished this painting, 4 foot by 12 foot in size, it was quite a bit of work. I started it after a decision last year to make something serious, as a piece of Art that I really wanted to make for myself. Not to make it because I thought it would sell or because it was what other people wanted to see, but because it's what I think can bring me closer to the source. I have an idea about artists, that they have this sort of vision they start out with that gets shaped over one's life span but really it's a concept of the world that we're born with. If you look at any museum retrospective I think it becomes quite obvious. You can see early on what substance is there even before the the masterpiece is made, and the later work or masterpiece is often very similar, just a very polished version of the first ones. The trick is the polishing, which is what the life of an artist consists of. And how that time and energy is spent leads to getting closer to that original vision, or if one isn't careful, moving further away from it and living as a mirror for popular thought.
I don't believe we know what we're going to make in the future, but I think we can sometimes get a feeling about what it may be if we're honest with ourselves and take the path of internal motivation. So with this last painting, I got that feeling, like I was getting closer to the ultimate painting I would like to some day make. I don't know what that painting looks like yet (maybe it wont be a painting at all) but I did have a step, so this year ends on a high note. It ends with my Lust for Life.