fireofgaia - very constructive and positive suggestions.
to answer your question - he grew up as my next door neighbor - i have known him my entire life. we often disagree on many things - but we have enough respect for each other to understand we will not always see eye to eye. in one way we do see eye to eye - is how we see color and line - he is a tight and maticulous painter - i am a loose painter who works well with wet paint on the canvas (like oil or watercolors) - we just compliment each other.
we also have worked on muriels together - they are labor intensive and 2 people working together allows us to do them quicker.
i also trust his artistic talent - and he is my harshest critic of my work. when i am torn with the direction of a piece or even a small part of a piece - i ask him (and my mother.)
keep in mind - we work together on some projects - but i still maintain my own individual artwork. and as much as he might dog on GC - he had no problem naming our company edison art group - after the street we grew up on in GC.
he will admit it was a great place to grow up as a kid - but he at the same time feels like the city is no longer that kind of place.
granite city is a topic we do not see eye to eye. that does not take away from the 28 years i have known him. it is just something we do not agree about.
we are building a portfolio for madart gallery, trying to get into the luminary, and will hopefully soon be able to get some work into the concrete ocean art gallery.
but the commissioned painting we are working on now is from word of mouth - and we may be doing another one for a guy in ladue that we found on craigslist...
if you dont mind - i am always trying to find new ways to get exposure to my work - so please send me any info you would like to share.