Sculpture and Painting

Thanks to Sue Favinger Smit at Ancient Artist for recommending What Painting Is.

I'm enjoying it. You might too. 

"Sooner or later every one of a painter’s possessions will get stained.
First to go are the studio clothes and the old sneakers that get the full shower of paint every day.
Next are the painter’s favorite books, the ones that have to be consulted in the studio.
Then come the better clothes, one after another as they are worn just once into the studio
and end up with the inevitable stain.
The last object to be stained is often the livingroom couch, the one place where it is possible to relax
in comfort and forget the studio. When the couch is stained, the painter has become a different
creature from ordinary people, and there is no turning back.

No one who has not experienced that condition can understand the odd feeling that
accompanies it. When every possession is marked with paint, it is like giving up civilian clothes
for jail house issue. The paint is like a rash, and no matter how careful a painter is, in the end it is
impossible not to spread the disease to every belonging and each person who visits the studio.
Some artists keep fighting it, and they turn up for work wearing clothes with only a few discrete
stains. Others give way, and they become funny mottled creatures, like GI’s in perpetual
camouflage."

From the book, What Painting Is by James Elkins
I'm enjoying it. You might too.