Creative reflections on an artist's life, place, and the joy in between

Over the weekend, I had the opportunity to participate in The Art Students League of Denver’s Summer Art Market, an annual art festival with over 250 artists from the Denver area. The last event I attended like it was over a year ago at The Artist Project in Chicago. It was there I was able to visualize how I wanted my paintings to appear. What, I thought to myself, does a painting by Jared Steinberg look like? As, I reviewed the paintings that hung on the walls of The Merchandise Mart last year, I considered my style, composition and subject matter, recognizing where I would need to channel my efforts to fulfill the vision. Looking over my booth at this year’s event, I noted the evident progress of my work while again acknowledging areas I need to address in order to advance my ideas.

Though I have been focusing on my style for the past year, it is the details within the presentation I now need to focus on. On the Saturday, the first day of the Art Market, I perused through the festival, paying attention to the other artist booths. I realized how the ones I really admired created such a captivating atmosphere through their presentation; from the format of the work, to varying degrees of consistency, down to the exhibition space itself- it became clear to me what I must do. I jotted down a few notes for reference and will be taking time this summer to put them into practice.

Apart from my selfish observations, I was truly amazed by the diversity at the festival this year: three-dimensional work, two-dimensional, pastels, paintings, drawings, abstract, grass-roots, contemporary, traditional, representational, floral, figurative- you name it, I saw it. All of which served to fuel a very high-quality, energetic show that I was pleased to be a part of.