If an artist paints, then if no one ever sees that painting, is it still art? This Question of the Weekend relates to the old "if a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it" dilemma.
                                                        


This is Alpine Artwalk's Gallery Night. So we're here, in little Alpine, Texas.  Big times. Food, drink, music, art, friends. Family. (My sister Kathy flew down from Calgary to share the weekend with us.) This small West Texas town decks the halls; businesses open their doors for the 14th annual event. Artists seek display space like bulls charging into a rodeo arena, Alpine being a cornerstone of the growing Big Bend art market. This isn't Manhattan or Santa Fe, but some of the art here is just as good. Some is better. And there's no traffic.
                                                        
              Sisters Lindy Cook Severns & Kathy Cook Nammour looking twinsy for Gallery Night
                                                                               (I'm the short, round-faced one.)
                    
For a nominal fee, any local business can participate and display the work of an area artist, jeweler, photographer, potter, or other artisan this weekend. (Making space for more than one artist is, of course, even better.) Folks who come to Artwalk then follow the signs to the next location as they walk the intimate downtown area while listening to corner musicians, visiting, nibbling and perhaps imbibing along the way. I dearly love people who drink bubbly while shopping for art.

Paintings by aspiring amateurs and polished professionals line the walls of Front Street Books, Bread and Breakfast, the Holland Hotel, Quetzal Gifts. Trans-Pecos Bank (one of my collectors of both oil and pastel) and West Texas National Bank (which really should buy a piece of my work so as to keep up with their discriminating neighbor) provide not only wall space but big donor funds. Alpine's full time galleries—my favorite jewelers, Susanna and David at Mi Tesoro; the new Catch Light Gallery, an artists' coop; big guy on the block and exclusive home to my framed creations, Kiowa Gallery all urge their resident artists to unfold new art at the event.  (In my case, only two of the fifteen 2006 paintings I took to Kiowa for last fall's Gallery Night remain unsold. Unfolding new pieces wasn't the issue— I had to produce a whole new collection for this year's event! A good problem to have, but, whew!!!) Collectors, designers, art lovers fly in to browse new regional art. Holiday shopping commences, and sales of unique gift items are brisk. 
                                     

                                                        Jim & Lindy Severns and MONSOON SEASON (30" x 40" oil) 
                                                                collection of Trans Pecos Banks, Alpine, TX

Some fine art walks out during Gallery Night weekend. But the event's thrust is acquainting people with the work and faces of area artists and introducing visitors to our charming and friendly area businesses. Gallery Night puts faces behind paintings, promotes art, and brings folks back to Alpine again, and again.

In the days leading to the official event, energy and excitement float through Alpine's streets like colorful leaves on a mountain breeze. Serious repeat collectors and savvy shoppers arrive to preview the offerings. There is the smell of money in the air. (Three of my pieces have already sold. And for that, I'm thankful, but I wish my sister could've seen them, first! ) I'm a professional artist, so I don't pretend the money isn't an issue. When I sell a painting, I shout whoopdeedoo.
But having ten or fifteen thousand strangers plus a few friends viewing the paintings I've been doing since last spring is heady. I can't be humble about that. I paint, and I absolutely love people admiring what I paint. The viewer is as much a part of the creative process as a stick of pastel.
So, do I paint to have my work admired?
If no one but me would ever see a painting, would I still pour my soul into creating it?
You bet I would.

Without an audience, would that unseen painting still be art?
                                    
                      Only for the birds.....
My audience while painting BROKEN SKY OVER BLUE MOUNTAIN would've just as soon made confetti of it

If a tree falls in a deserted forest, the earth surely feels the thunder from that living thing it has long and lovingly nourished. Who cares if anybody hears the tree fall. The earth was involved with that tree from the get-go. The earth remembers the sapling's roots sucking water from the soil, its trunk flowing with life, branching, leafing. The sound the tree makes when it falls may be mighty, but to the earth it came from, sound is the least part of its quiet creation.

I'm thrilled when a painting sells. I delight in having my work prominently displayed in a prestigious gallery. I want my husband, my sister, my friends to admire what I spend my time on. But ultimately, I paint for myself. Once I dirty my hands, creating, that painting becomes forever part of me. After reproducing a physical landscape on canvas, I never see that terrain the same again. It edges into my soul to claim a niche. Whether anyone ever sees my creation changes nothing. I paint because I paint.
And all the rest is gravy.
(This weekend, I think I'll enjoy a fine Merlot with all that gravy!)
 

BROKEN SKY OVER BLUE MOUNTAIN, a  20" x 50" pastel , the centerpiece of my Gallery Night 2007 collection