Recently I posted about documenting my work in an official format other than website or portfolio. And much to my surprise I had designed nearly 200 pieces in 12 years. This number both comforted and disturbed me as I had been fretting quite a lot with the volume of work I put out into the Universe and what would happen to my inventory when I am no more. Documenting it actually seemed to calm me down a bit. And then I read this from Robert Genn’s column on being a painter…
“I was intrigued by what you see as Norman Rockwell’s decline with age. Do you think artists must inevitably suffer a waning of their powers as they grow older? I would like to think that, unlike athletes, for example, we can just keep getting better and better.”
…The Canadian painter A.Y. Jackson called it “painterly senility.” He thought it had something to do with the number of paintings painted. “Every painter has 2,500 paintings in him,” he said, “no more, no less.”
When I heard that statement (in a radio interview in 1974) I was already up to 7,000. I briefly figured I was prematurely on my way to the old painters’ home, but I was wrong, and so was he.
Seven thousand?! I have no worries. I must get back to work!!!
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