Shay wrote:

> 
> Painting the bird in a single stroke the first time would have been less 
> valuable. Could the painter have done so and had he called the patron an 
> idiot, the patron would have walked across the street and purchased 
> another single-stroke painting of a bird. APTITUDE IS COMMON. The more 
> art I see, the more certain I become that *the* open frontier in art is 
> work ethic.

Yes, but need you show the room full of 'dirty linen' every time just to 
prove the worth of the result?  That worth should be manifest in the 
result alone, should it not?  I think the painter was, at a minimum, 
very patient with his patron.  Perhaps my impoliteness would be a poor 
thing, but in the painters place, I surely would have let the patron 
walk across the street and buy another artist's painting, if all he 
apparently wanted was a low price for a single stroke of the brush.



> 
> I will say of my own picture, despite its flaws, that although a person 
> may not find it beautiful or stirring, nor understand why it took me 
> months to complete, he won't often see another like it. The form can be 
> repeated, but the details I have taken the time to include, however 
> minuscule, are *something* extra-ordinary he can take from it. 


The latent craftmanship of a work, is something most people can respond 
to and take pleasure in.  You have always concerned yourself with 
latencies in artwork, latencies often beyond craftmanship alone.  It is 
the common thread, to my mind, in the various work I've seen you do over 
the years.  I is a level of awareness that I value very much, even if I 
don't always pursue it myself.*

*Craftsmanship is quite important to me though.

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