Wednesday, January 06, 2010

It All Comes Down to This

I was really fortunate to get to attend a "special" school in my youth. Someone at some point decided that we "special" kids should all be herded together and forced to go to the same school and be given the chance to learn together. This great scholastic initiative has given District 150 one of the premier schools in the area, but take it from one of the first class members, most of the time I wish I had just attended "regular" school.
They started Washington Grade School in the sixties - and staffed it with some of the best and brightest teachers in the area. We studied foreign language, algebra,chemistry, physics, debate, and my favorite art, all starting in the in the fourth grade.
As you may have guessed my favorite class was art, and the lucky teacher who got to come in and instruct these prodigies - none other than one young Don Kettleborough. It was in these art classes that I tried to soak up as much information as possible, and almost everything I do has it's roots in that class.
I said all that to get to this one point that I can still remember like it was yesterday, Mr. Kettleborough holding up a girls painting and expounding on the problems of being "finished". How do you know when to stop? When is the painting only going to be cluttered, muddied, or otherwise ruined by more effort?
Every painter wrestles with this problem at the final stages of every painting, when do you say when? It always comes down to this!


Tonight I will take before and after photos of the painting "Capital Reflection" to see if I make the right call. The painting of the Iowa State Capital could be finished - but I think I need to put on a bronze glaze over the windows to tone down the painting a bit. This is a dangerous this as I could ruin the whole piece, but Mr. K would say , only I can make that call.

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