"Julia"

36X48 oil on canvas

up for auction soon

 

Here's another older painting. I have a lot of mostly happy memories of the time in which I was working on this piece. I painted this at the "Celebration of Fine Art" in 2000...the first year I did the show. It is of the lovely Julia Chacon who is an awesome flamenco dancer. I'll just say that I received a lot of advice while I was painting this (mostly from male artists, but I digress...). Although this was out of my comfort zone at the time, as far as color palette, size, etc., it represents a pivotal point at which I learned to take unsolicited advice with a grain of salt (or less). I started to figure out that the other advice-giving artists were giving me conflicting advice.

 

Okay...I've decided to share this one story, but not the name of the artist. One of the (male) artists who was giving me advice was just never satisfied with this piece. He would walk up and say, "I don't know...it's almost there, but there's just something not quite right. I don't know...maybe you should use the complimentary color on the shawl (in reference to the fan and scarf)." To which I truthfully said, "It is the complimentary color." He walked away trying to figure out what further advice he could give me in order to improve upon this obviously substandard work.

 

The next year, I was at the Celebration again and the same (male...did I say that before already?) artist dropped by my studio space for a chat. Apparently he had no recollection of this painting from the year before, because he said, "Now that's a kick-ass painting". Hmmm...okay...whatever.

 

This is a large painting in need of a good home. It would also be great in an office or restaurant (well...maybe not a Chinese restaurant...but you get my drift). Feel free to contact me if you're interested in putting an early bid in on this piece...and feel free to forward. I feel inspired now...I think I'll put on some flamenco music and do my fandango dance...