The painter Robert Henri (1859-1929)
advised: "Paint life as it is,
especially its back yards." I try to follow
his advice and paint the ordinary, the common-place, in an
appealing way. My paintings are not complicated, they require
no explanation or interpretation. Most of my work is done on
location in an attempt to reveal the patterns formed by
natural shapes of fields, trees, streams and shadows. It
may be the rugged farm houses with their old barns and
outbuildings that recall an ordinary but harder way of
life. Side streets, alleyways and houses in small towns and
villages also appeal to me, things we all look at but
don't always see. Don Grieger
"Artists are sometimes asked,
"Why do you paint ugly and not beautiful
things?"
The questioner rarely hesitates in his judgment of what is
beautiful,
and what is ugly. Beauty, he thinks, is a settled fact.
His concern is that
beauty rests in the subject, not in the
expression. He should, therefore,
pay high for Rembrandt's "Portrait of a
Gentleman," and then turn
in disgust from "A Beggar" by
Rembrandt."
