Author: eraybur

Tomory Dodge is a painter based out of Los Angeles, California. I would consider him an abstract painter, with paint as the subject matter. I love his technique of pulling single strokes of paint across the canvas, half mixed so that you can see exactly what colors created an overall tone. His work is very expressive and somewhat dark, I feel a sense of foreboding of some sort post-apocalyptic world. In my newest painting I am trying to emulate his style, in my pile of rubble I want to create the same abstract wasteland.

Eric Fischl is a painter that focuses on figurative work, with an interest in light and dark. I love his broad, expressive strokes and his use of color. I want to embody this understanding of light and dark into my own work.

To me, being a successful artist means showing and selling work on a regular basis, and secure enough to be able to work in the studio everyday versus having a series of part time jobs. It means that I would be gallery represented, and hopefully will be going on residencies and traveling with my work. It also means that I would be meeting and hanging with other artist: I do this now, and it helps to influence and develop my work, so if I keep doing this, things can only get better. But most of all, being a successful artist means I’m creating work everyday. Good or bad, I’m working and trying and putting myself “out there”.

In the excerpt from the textbook Taking The Leap, it states that to be a successful artist “you need three things: curiosity, commitment, and good work habits”, while talent is conspicuously left off the roster. I like this: true talent can only do so much, but really the brunt of becoming a successful artist is to work really, really hard. This is a daunting task, knowing that if this what I truly want to pursue (which is a no brainer) technique and skill will only get me part of the way, and a helpful little reminder that I need to buckle down and work every.single.day. Crap. Commitment I have, curiosity I have in abundance, but good work habbits….ehhhhhhhh. I catch myself treating the studio like my living room, not pushing myself out of lulls until I’m right at the brink of insanity from lack of working, just general laziness on my part.

But, here’s hoping that this can be easily remedied through being conscious of this side of me. Seems that the true talent is pushing yourself to work, getting yourself “out there”. Raw ability doesn’t mean shit if you never do anything with it.