Travel days make it difficult to get a painting in, so instead of walking about the town and finding a location, I did a painting right in Pablo’s apartment and left it for him. Not bad for 90 minutes.

I always tell my students that it is not the subject matter that makes fantastic art, but the artist. Some of my favorite pieces are of mundane things. Things that would seem to have no import. There used to be an assignment I gave, which I had inherited from my teacher pal, Doug Parry, which involved students creating multiple black and white compostions of a styrofoam cup. Many were truly beautiful.

Now why in the world would a styrofoam cup….be worthy of depiction? Mostly, because it is not about the styrofoam cup. It’s about the lighting, the shadows, the composition, the values, the shapes, how the eye is led. The line, the gradient, the edge, the clarity or lack thereof, the mark of the artist, the slant of style (concious or not).

Visual art reveals not only how the artist sees and thinks, but also reveals how anyone who looks at it sees and thinks. That is why good ole 2D visual art is still fascinating. Each time we look at a piece, we are unpacking how we see. An artist needs to respect that we are all visually fluent, in that we are all native to the visual world. We are all expert see-ers.

The artist seeks to become literate in a language that everyone is already fluent in. Then they have the ability to create with humanity’s native tongue.

It is odd that so many are iliterate in their own dominant language: Sight. It is not talent that makes people literate. Like reading and writing, it is studying it for years.

Today I visit the DigiPen Bilbao School and meet some of the teachers there! Then….the Bilbao Guggenheim Museum if there is time.

THE MUNDANE ISN'T