THIS OUGHT TO BE FUN! It’s a rainy day and I feel like stirring up trouble.

Like the mythical Darwinian cetaceans, (mammals who allegedly, doggedly returned to the sea after eons of existence on land) my creative mind and soul have been constantly drawn to the sea. I grew up playing on Galveston Island on weekends, enjoying the freedom and the ocean and the sporting life, and the pristine hypnotic beauty of the beach. We absolutely loved it, and could never dream that this access would ever change- or be fenced-off or crowded or corrupted.

Now living fairly far inland, the salt air and seafood have become a fantasy, and the life we enjoyed seems more like a dream. Not surprisingly, I have developed HUNDREDS OF CONCEPTS from those memories, and yet painted only a few. Because… I quickly run into hatred of these painting ideas.

Rejection, and even implied condemnation. That is because these concepts invariably illustrate people, and specifically the female form. In fact, I find anything depicting young women, regardless of the amount of clothing, is dismissed as “man bait.” Yet a recent image dump I did here on Facebook revealed overwhelming interest in my painting of females, of any kind. Still, there is this invisible wall. In this sexualized society, Victorian propriety is alive and well, now boosted by radical feminism. And maybe even more fierce, given the bombardment of sexually suggestive imagery in advertising. Where does that leave the artist, who is constantly finding and depicting beauty? Granted, the artist’s training somewhat numbs his sensitivity to partial nudity. It is a paradox which I have been able to solve.

So, I try to meet this bias half-way. Here is one example of my attempts to legitimize my coastal art. So far, the Facebook forum has proved to be quite reasonable- so I covet your thoughts! Better or worse? I need to know, there is a tsunami of this kind of art pressing to be born! Should my inner cetacean die on the beach, or be welcomed to an ocean of ideas???