What kind of artist do you want to be?

I just came back from a quick trip down to London. A lot of Americans think England IS London, and they're surprised to find out that most Brits live somewhere else. Well, I live somewhere else! It's a traffic-riddled 5-hour journey if I drive and just under 4 hours if I take the train. (There's a fast train from the nearest big city, but I have to drive and take a train just to get there).

The travel challenges mean that I rarely go to the "big smoke," so when I do, I try to make the most of it. Besides a morning at the US embassy sorting out my passport, the rest of the time was my own. I spent a lovely day with Alice Sheridan (my podcast co-host) drinking cups of tea and looking out at the river Thames and talking about future plans. I enjoyed a marvellous play at the National Theater, where I also saw an exhibition of beautiful drawings by Curtis Holder (former Portrait Artist of the Year). I spent a happy few hours browsing art books in a fabulous little second-hand bookshop (and bought 3 heavy books that I then had to lug around London!) And finally, I spent some time in the Tate Modern. 

The Tate Modern actually wouldn't have been my first choice, but it was closest. and I was short of time. I don't know why, but I find the TM a little depressing. Maybe it's the stark architecture, with towering grey walls and concrete floors, or maybe it's the sheer size of the place, and the fact that I know they have tons of amazing artworks hidden away in storage. But anyway, time was short, so there I was.

I had hoped to be inspired, but that didn't happen. It's so odd to see paintings out of context - there's an Yves Klein blue painting next to a Matisse collage and in the next room there are Andy Warhol paintings and here's Marcel Duchamp's famous urinal ... it's all so disjointed and not at all how the artists wanted us to view their work.

So I can't say I came away inspired to paint, but I did think a lot about my art, and about where I fit in. 

All of the work I saw was about something. None of it was decorative - none of it was created to look nice. It was a response to something, or an inquiry about something, or a statement about something. Aesthetics were a non-issue in many cases, and were almost never the primary concern.

And if you want to make that kind of art, and ultimately be hung in the Tate Modern, there are specific paths you can take that will help you gain attention and open the right doors. But is that what I want?

The truth is that aesthetics have always mattered to me. I focus on things like colour and composition. I play with the balance of contrast and harmony. I try to make paintings that are beautiful (at least by my own standards). So is that what I want? 

I'm not sure. On the one hand, beauty is important to me in real life as well as in art. I like to live in beautiful places. I care very much about my home decor. I like to surround myself with beautiful things. So it makes sense that beauty would also matter in my art. On the other hand, honesty also matters to me and honesty isn't always pretty. I want to get to the heart of things, and the heart of things can sometimes be ugly.

I suspect that my next paintings will be something to do with this dichotomy - they may be about the battle between the desire for harmony and the desire for honesty, which is a struggle that has played out over and over again in my life. Or maybe they won't ... maybe they'll be about something completely different. 

What I do know is that they have to be about something. I definitely have no interest in making purely decorative paintings. I don't think there's anything wrong with that, and I have nothing against people who do that, I just know it doesn't work for me. 

So, while the trip to London didn't give me clarity or specific new ideas, it did spark a lot of thoughts and it did help me think about my focus. And I think this is important. If we're creating, it's important to understand why and to know what we're striving for.  Do we want to be commercially successful? Do we want to hang in MOMA one day? Or do we simply want to create a little beauty in the world?

Once we know what we're aiming for and where we want to fit in, we can take the actions that give us the best chance of making that happen. 

So, I turn the question to you and ask "what kind of artists do you want to be?"