The other day, I had an online conversation with someone who criticized my portrait work, labeling it as “copy art” and “disposable.” I tried to clarify that the pieces he saw were just fan art I do for fun, not my entire body of work. While I don’t take it too seriously, I do enjoy doing them. I create things, it’s what I do.
Well he doubled down by explaining how wrong I was for letting money motivate my subject matter, and that art should stand alone without relying on popular figures. There’s a lot to get into with this one…

Yes, I do hope to sell my fan art — shocking. But my motivation isn’t solely profit-driven. If it were, I’d be churning out pieces for Swifties right now. My criteria for choosing subjects is simple: if someone’s music moves me, if I’ve watched their movie repeatedly, or if I admire their representation in sports or history, I’m likely to draw them.

Then he suggested I stick to my wildlife art and leave subject-driven art alone. Oh boy…

It’s a bit naive to believe that every wildlife artist is into animals, I know for a fact many of them hardly spend any time in the wild. Also many draw from online images, just as I do with fan art. People have favorite animals, people have favorite singers, actors, etc. And people are first and foremost drawn to the subject matter they’re interested in. I would never buy a painting of Luke Bryan no matter how striking the artwork is, and I would never buy a painting of a mole-rat regardless of how amazingly painted that creepy ass thing was. So to suggest subject matter has no bearing and it’s only the art… I mean, come on…
He also brought up copyright issues, insisting I should pay estates for the people I draw. Okay, fair enough…

It may be plagiarism, but I’ve been doing this since the ’90s without ever receiving a formal cease and desist. Why? Because I mostly paint other artists. No I don’t know any of these people personally, I just get the feeling that each one of them would actually like my portrayals as long as they’re done accurately and in good light. Artist love art, this I know.

There was one instance in ’99 when the mother of a deceased band member asked me to take down a painting of her son from eBay. I didn’t ask why, I just apologized for upsetting her, I really did feel bad about it. She explained she wasn’t upset, she just didn’t want him to become mass-produced poster material. After a long heartfelt conversation about her son’s life and music, she realized my intention was to honor him, and how much her son touched my life through his art. She told me, “This isn’t poster material, this is an amazing representation of him and I love it.” Even now, it remains the most profound compliment I’ve ever received on my artwork. She gave me the go ahead to sell it and anything else I create of him. So I had the green light on being, what seemed, the lone artist approved by an unbelievably popular lead singer’s estate to re-create his likeness. I respectfully declined. What a peculiar decision for someone supposedly motivated by money.

So in closing I have two words for the angry, high strung art purist that was hounding me about doing pop art portraits.

Andy Warhol.

(I bet you were expecting two different words )