I've been working on this water color for the last several years

Several years ago, when I was water coloring some color dropped on this page and over time I've kept this page with the other things I'm working on letting it work itself and seeing where it might go. Eventually I signed it, in the lower corner, which may not be visible in these shots, which are cropped a bit.

Someone, a straw man or woman, or a real man or woman, might say, "well you're just letting it happen and calling it art - I could do that." But such an attitude misses the point. Yes, art is easy. Anyone could be putting color on surfaces and, if they let themselves go, produce good pieces. It is possible, under the dictates of mimesis, to make things difficult. The problem with any aesthetic that puts copy=real forward is that versimilitude is not a satisfying end in itself. And even versimilitude is accessible to anyone. Anyone can paint a photorealist painting: get yourself some copies of american artist and practice. After awhile it'll be easy.

The thing is, all art is easy. What isn't easy is the letting yourself go. What isn't easy is the love. Art springs from love and need - the need to make images and the love of using materials. If materials are just a means to an end, then the work will be artless - and if there is no need - then there will be no art made.

It is frustrating that we judge art based on cost, replacement value. And it is frustrating that we judge artists based on fame and money making potential. As human beings our earliest real kin are the earliest artists. Ancient humanity did not start corporations or leave behind ledgers - but they painted and sculpted.

Would that the world was filled with folk artists: making constructions in boxes, painting without rules, crafting and assembling structures and images bringing together disparate elements, dropping paint on paper, over throwing their super egos, their editing out of their creativity.

But it is not. Human beings are taught to conform, to shut up, to follow the rules, to mimic - and in that case, is it any wonder that we are diverted from being artists to being mimics - indeed believing that a mimic is an artist. That the artistry is the mimicry and not the value added of ourselves that lifts the mimicry to the authentically human and humane.