[TradicalRC]

Quite refreshing. I attended art school in the early eighties. While it wasn't overtly political, it did submit to the de rigeur criteria of modernism in art. I was a Bougereau fan back then and was generally dismissed. I was simply ahead of my time. I have not painted for a while now mostly because my time is taken up by raising four young girls. And no, they are not worth sacrificing on the altar of the Bitch-Goddess Art. To everything there is a season.

[reformedliberal]

Speaking of the Bitch Goddess, which was always my impression of urban gallery owners thru the 70's, which was the last time I showed 2-D, I wonder if any of the younger artists can comment on the gallery scene as it is right now?

Are any major galleries taking a chance on realism? I know some painters who are successful w/Figurative Expressionism (not the abstract version), but the realists seem limited to the smaller Midwestern galleries. Mostly I see watercolors and they are either still life or landscape or wildlife.

I no longer compete or show and have a wholesale line of functional fiber, a distributor and assorted retail accounts. It's a living, but it is boring.

As to your kids: being raised by a working artist isn't really detrimental. My son told me when he was 21 that he never realized I worked, since I was always home. He loved the craft fairs and just thought of them as family fun. I recall that he earned his first independant money helping other crafters set up and tear down and load their vans and one summer he hired himself out to the silversmiths as a polisher. He had a small buffer he had fixed up to an old treadle sewing machine base and a ready clientle. He was 3 when I began to work full time as a craft artist.