They sit in a committee room, wading through big envelopes of slides and prints, and their eyeballs glaze over and they'd like the bozo who committed all this art to say a word or two. I mean, you can learn so much more about a person that way. Painting is all very nice if you're into decoration and home furnishings and so on, but it's the use of language that separates the men from the boys. So sharpen your pencil and sit down and do it. You don't need to explain your work, just put forth a few lines that suggest, in a serious but not pretentious way, what is new and different about you and your work, your ethos, your sensibility.
Sensibility is a good word to use.
Luminous might be another. Just set down some artistic principles that your own friends could read without falling on the floor and choking to death and that would bring tears of admiration to the jurors' eyes and give them reason to award you the Hermione Loomis Gould Fellowship for Vermont Landscape Artists Under 30. Honk your horn, Brush Boy. All rights reserved.