one of the only portraits I have ever painted. This guy's name was Larry, and I saw him naked a few times. He's a really nice, quiet model who made the Mid-Missouri circuit like no other. Anyway, I thought I'd start out with a post of something of which I currently do little. Why? I don't really know. But I still like the painting. Being mostly an abstract painter, looking at this work always brings me to that weird debate that's ongoing in our current post (post?) modern art world that is (still) working out what a painting is or should be. I feel this tension between abstraction and representation very strongly at SAIC, where painting is still important, despite trends in "anti-art" art and intentionally "crappy", "faux naive" art. At times, it feels we make up too many excuses just to paint a picture. It's way too easy to over analyze every stroke, every "move" in some attempt to make the "right" painting. Sometimes, a painting is just a painting. Making Larry's portrait, I think I felt what if must be like to make a picture for the sake of making a picture, a feeling that can be hard to come by in art school, ironically. I guess thats why I like it still.