Who am I to judge?

Charles — Still focus in the figures. 
Energy in the brushwork.
A rushing background
- history on the fly!

If I was going to be nit-picky, I'd say the composition is a little boxy. But what do we have but a rectangle to work with? Beyond that, the slant of mark making in the background pushing forward on the figures braced against it and shielded by that wall with the heart on it . . . that says it all, doesn't it?

I've never thought "This is right and this is wrong" is a good approach -- although probably I have crossed this line many times in my life. Instead, I describe what I see and try to find what that makes me think or feel. It's to the painter himself to decide, "Is it enough?" When they hear what I have described, they know the message has gotten through, or not. Who am I to judge?

Just the decision to do the work requires courage enough. We work in a language with paint that even we don't always understand.

Somehow you feel the necessity of it. The need to take this up and to put this down. To stop here and to carry it on there. How can this rage be expressed? This fear? This courage to stand against the current? How to express the inexpressible? Why to we feel it elegantly or crudely represented in our raw mark making?

Why is there always the hope that this watermelon seed spit from our lives will grow a thousand fold to reach a future and an audience we can neither see nor touch?

OK, I've got to stop, now I've got myself walking into a fog of silly stuff.