I’m going to have a work exhibited in the A.G.A.S.T. Annual Gowanus Artists Studio Tour on the weekend of October 21st - 22nd - it’s my “Segmented Life” Self Portrait I painted earlier this summer. I had to come down to BAG today to make sure my work would be exhibited. And here I am as I sit infront of my laptop, which I had to bring along today.

But I managed to do a sketch today - I had the burning feeling I needed to…. and I’ll bring my crayons with me to Washington DC where I’ll be covering the EMetrics Summit for my WebMetricsGuru.com blog as well as meeting up with several of my web metrics analyst coworkers from IBM.

And here’s the sketch, and then I’ll let you in on some thoughts about it.

Things “come to me” as I paint. I see myself - ways that I express myself in color and let them be expressed - I’m creating a painting, not copying nature.

On the wall to my upper left hangs one of my nude study sketches, next to some other works. I like my own stuff better - but I also hear others like my stuff too. What’s interesting is the “time element” of painting. When you put works of different artists, different styles, next to each other - it’s often distracting. Work that is more photographic tends to be more easy to understand, more immediately in view. But a funny thing happens over time……

Over time, as you come back to work that’s good, that has feeling - it can grow on you, on me. I’m not saying my work is good, or even that is the only good thing hanging on that wall now (or it just well might be). What I’m saying is … time reveals the true art, and the true artist.

BTW, you might want to see the scene that inspired my oil pastel sketch (below).