I'm now at the point where I feel I can do anything I want. I used to feel like I was pigeonholed into doing just one thing, because the emphasis today seems to be on that. Be this way or that way but not both ways. Art is art is art. I think I shall be anyway I want. I have painted long enough to know I don't need to keep checking myself. I am confident, I paint because I can, and because I want to say something. That is all that matters really. Not what anyone thinks. Its my art. My language and I feel it needs to be what it is. So, I work from abstraction to impressionism, to expressionist and whatever else happens to be a defining word for what I do. I really don't think my work falls into just one category anyway.
But then again, now that I think about it, .. it does not really matter. That I paint, is what matters. Not that I need to find a defining style for what I do. After all, that too might change, and it does. There is more than just one approach. The ways to speak in paint are many.
Styles are for clothes anyway. I would say, my art can be loose, expressive, sometimes abstract, and mostly using the energy of strong colors or contrast. But that has variables too. I do not acknowledge parameters. The art must be itself. And that way, it always is true. Not forced.
And by the way, .. its good to have added to my blog once again. Its been a loooooong time. Who knows when the spirit will move me to do so again.

A lot of times I just have to take hold of the palette according to the seasons. usually happens in the fall and spring the most, but winter is a close runner up. Summer, .. meh, .. I don't get crazy about as in this area its a mostly predominant abundance of green on top of green surrounded by more green, and with very little horizon and visibility. So, unless one happens to be at the coast with open views and colorful settings, .. I can take it or leave it. Here are some of my spring inspired pieces from the month of May. Hope you like them! 

#TwitterArtExhibit AMAZING! Met @DavidSandum tonight and bought awesome artwork by good friend @russpotakartist pic.twitter.com/7Q90hXYlzy

— artcworld/Cynthia (@artcworld) April 1, 2016

My artwork at the New York City TwitterArtExhibit being purchased by a dear artist friend of mine, with David Sandum the founder and originator standing next to Cynthia. ~  This friends is as good as it gets!

A painting? Perhaps. Because it uses paint? Maybe.
But there is more than paint here. And at times, paint may not even appear.
But at what point, does it no longer fit into the square peg of the "painting" definition. And does it really matter?

That it exists is the thing.
I am beginning to realize that I may not be painting anymore using conventional standards. I like to speak visually. To do this requires whatever I feel I must use to complete this visual language. That I don't adhere to the retail market conventions of this kind of brush, or this kind of paint, or paper, or canvas, or whatever, does not concern me in the least.
 What is important is I say what I need to, and however and in any fashion or means that I choose. There is too much to say, to let conventional hindrances get in the way. The idea, that a painting already had a preconceived notion and image of what a painting is, or should look like, makes me want to run in the opposite direction. I have no interest, in "making paintings". I do have an interest in speaking visually.
It is what it is. I suppose we can agree on this, Its just art. Let's leave it at that.

Just some thoughts. If I don't get these fragmented thoughts down somewhere, I will most likely lose them. And this is as good as place as any to unload them.
Okay, .. first thought.
I decided to try a few landscapes again, and it seems everybody ooooh-ed and ahhhh-ed over them. I did a few more, and the same. On the third one, .. I got restless, and then extremely bored. I found that there was nothing I hadn't said in them before. And I realized that if an is a journey, then going back over familiar ground is like going in circles. You get nowhere. You just keep repeating yourself. Oh sure people love the repetition, but in the end, it will kill the artists reason to paint. If the only reason to paint is to repeat motions over and over, it would be better to be rowing a boat. At least the boat will end up somewhere. I don't know where I am going here, but I do know, I have to keep the journey new, fresh, and go to undiscovered places in myself. Otherwise I may just fall asleep at the easel and that could be dangerous. Crash and burn. Not a pretty sight for any artist.
This painting is one of my new approaches in finding new places to go instead of the familiar duck pond or landscape.
Titled: Loose Wire
acrylic on 200 lb archival paper
11 x 11"
©11/14 russ potak

The Explained Shape

14" x 12" 

acrylic on 200 lb paper

©11/14 russ potak 

Its been a real long time since I have blogged. Veerrrrry long. I don't even remember when I did last. I guess I could check to see, but why?  If I think it was a long time ago, then it probably was.
 A lot has happened with the way I see art now. Especially my art. I'm not sure when, but at some point I began feeling lethargic about painting. And I thought to myself, why? What is it exactly that is starting to tire me and cause me to lose interest. As usual, despite my questions, I just continued on painting, .. and starting to lose interest again.

 It was at that point that I realized, .. "wait a minute,.. I've done this painting before,..I've been here. Done it, again and again, ...! " Yes, I did. I have painted for so long and for so much, that there is hardly anything I have not painted.  And even if there was, I began to question the reason. Was this all there is? Just to keep on painting, and finding different subjects to paint? I One after another, after another, after another...Borrrrrring is the only word that comes to mind here. Just to paint, and paint, and paint, expressing subjects one after another. began to wear on my mind. I had to do something here, or I felt I would have hung up my brushes. The only time I felt enthused was when I was experimenting in using paint differently, or breaking my own rules that I felt necessary to paint the known world of subjects. But it was those self imposed rules that were dragging me to deeper and deeper depths, like an anchor snared around my legs. I felt helpless to break free.

 Life is short enough, and hard enough, without one's art driving ones self to boredom. I needed to change gears. I knew it had to undergo some kind of variation if I were to stay interested.  It wasn't about not liking painting, it was more about having the same experience, over and over, doing the same thing, with results that were very much of the same. How many landscapes, bowls of fruit, sports figures, local scenes, seascapes, etc, am I actually going to paint? I can't even count how many of all of those subjects I have done over and over, . yes, and over. I needed a new approach here. Something that makes me want to experience the act of painting again. Not just "getting it right" and having a nice representation for someone to ooh and ahh at about how well I painted the thing. I found I don't really care anymore about how well I paint a "thing".

I found my solution. Using painting as a means to explore new worlds in colors that I have not experienced. To paint places I have never seen, or may never see. Places in the mind, places of the compositions themselves. Lines, forming out of nothing, shapes being born on my canvas for the first time, and harmonies that started to make music in my head and on my palette. This I thought was like exploring new worlds. New lands. Infinite universes.

 Since then I have been fired up. Excited. Finding a thrill in the process of painting. I have left the known world of subjects behind that were getting exceedingly tiring, boring, uneventful and all too familiar. I now look on painting as a journey. A trip. An adventure. Or as one very familiar, and famous Captain once said.... "To boldly go where no one has gone before."
Its always the journey anyway and not the destination. I shall play this out. Who knows how long it will last, or where it will lead me. And at least its not boring.