Spring Rush: Oil on Canvas -- 24x12. Available through the artist -- carolyn@stevehendersonfineart.com.

Years ago, some Japanese exchange students that we hosted taught us a card game called, loosely translated, Rich Man/Poor Man. No score was kept on paper, but after each round, players moved their physical positons around the table depending on when they went out -- the first to go out was the Rich Man and sat at the head of the table, flanked by players in descending order (Middle Class Man; Poor Man, then Poorest Man).

At the beginning of the next round,  the Rich Man gave his two worst cards to the Poorest Man, who gave him his two best cards. The Middle Class Man exchanged his one worst cart with the Poor Man's one best card. Needless to say, it was more fun being at the very top than it was at the bottom, but at the same time, the person at the very top was acutely aware that everyone else was jockeying for his position.

Until I played this game, I don't think I fully understood the meaning of the saying, "play your cards right." The person at the bottom, although he very much wanted to be at the top, sometimes just contented himself with getting out of being in the lowest position, and played his cards accordningly. Moving one position to the right to the Poor Man's spot, when he would only have to exchage one top card instead of two, was cause for celebration.

We're all dealt a hand of cards, and sometimes it looks mighty slim. Some of us bluff our way through; some of us are cautious to the point of timidity, but all of us need to fan out our hand and review what we've got to work with.

Original Fine Art Painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Palouse Falls -- Oil on Canvas -- by Steve Henderson

Our home is sited in the middle of a large meadow, with a hill looming over the back of the house, which in our mind is the front of the house. Large windows provide light and view, a landscape of everchanging color and light. Throughout the house are additional fine art landscapes and seascapes of places we have been or would like to have been, so that, regardless of the time of day or season of the year, we are always looking at a mountain, or the hill, or a section of the Pacific coast.

Landscapes and seascapes fill a need in our lives, always there to provide a respite from the day's challenges and demands. A person can lose himself in a landscape, both in the vista itself and in the means by which it is portrayed. A good landscape painting enables the viewer to discover new things each time he looks at it, as well as to settle in at a familiar spot and mentally detoxify.

Original fine art watercolor painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Cottonwod Grove: Oil on Canvas -- 12x16.

Someone commented to me that the use of "versus" in the title implies that Abstract and Representational camps are polar opposites, and that they are vying against one another. While I do not necessarily wish to foster strife, to some extent, there is validity in this observation.

Although I know that there are many clients who enjoy works from both genres, I have also seen battle lines drawn within artists' ranks when it comes to discussing the merits and drawbacks of each. Eventually, what it boils down to is this: art is subjective, and ultimately, people will gravitate towards what they like, and there is absolutely nothing wrong with the choices that they freely make. Some will gag at abstract art; some will embrace it. Some will fill their walls with representational work; others will decline.

This said, there is also the issue that art is fluid, and within many pieces, elements of both the abstract and the representational are involved, although there does tend to be a leaning toward one or the other. It is amazing how, in this day when the words "diversity" and "tolerant" are overused and underapplied, proponents from both sides denigrate the intelligence or taste of afficionados of the other. Artists should feel free to paint what it is their passion to paint, and in the style in which they express this passion. It is eminently possible for an artist to explore new depths and layers of meaning within the representational style. Abstract works are not always "new" and "cutting edge" -- some of them are old and tired. Conversely, Representational works are not necessarily "staid" and "traditional" -- in the hands of the artist, representational work can be very much cutting edge, while very much still looking like something.

I have always believed that one purpose of art is to NOT make people feel stupid, and must say that in my experience, proponents of the abstract genre tend to promote that feeling in the uninitiated. The very language used to describe an art piece is an example: "This well-articulated solipsism poignantly steers a subtle path between a glassed off virtual reality and a sense of bucolic reductionism."

What, precisely, does that mean? Is art meant to be so unreachable that the average patron cannot understand a description of the painting? By its very nature, abstract work cannot be described in clear, concrete terms, because it does not portray clear, concrete subjects. This is not to say that a splash of color and lines cannot look striking on the wall, but it also does not necessarily mean that there is an abundance of significant thought imbued on the canvas. It could, after all, be no more than several gradations of orange with black spots interspersed.

I choose representational work because I very much enjoy the outdoors, especially the rural outdoors, and I find a challenge in viewing and interpreting a scene without replicating it as a photograph. I enjoy looking at a finished piece from different distances, and finding different things to look at everytime I view the work.

Original fine art oil painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Autumn Road: Oil on Canvas Panel -- 9x12. Available at Stephenson's Cellars, www.stephensoncellars.com.

I am continually amazed at the number of roads we enjoy in this country. Even in the rural outreach of Columbia County, we can walk, bicycle or drive along well paved roads such as this one that often seemingly lead nowhere. I well remember bicycling along portions of the Pan American Highway in South America; in the upper regions of the Andes Mountains, some sections of this transcontinental highway were little more than gravel paths. In the Darien Jungle of Central America, there was no highway -- my traveling companion and I hoisted our bikes on our shoulders and followed a guide through overgrown underbrush until we reached a river; the bicycles and their owners were then loaded onto dugout canoe for the long, long water journey into Colombia.

That was years ago. I am told that the highway has now been completed, but my memories of that powefully lush jungle make me wonder if that Darien Jungle section would be able to win the fight against the creeping vines. Everytime I walk, drive, or bicycle along one of our Columbia County rural roads, I wonder again at our richly ribboned landscape of roads.

Original fine art oil painting by Steve Henderson of Steve Henderson Fine Art.

Joseph Canyon: Oil on Canvas -- 12x24.

Although we are independent people -- sometimes irritatingly so, our loved ones tell us -- artists spend a lot of time trying to figure out what to call ourselves -- are we pleine air painters? Are we impressionists with a 21st century abstract streak? Do we lean toward the Old Masters with a dab of Monet and Manet here and there?

I try to keep from labeling myself, but I know more and more what I like to paint: the rapidly disappearing rural landscapes and seascapes surrounding me. I happen to live in the Pacific Northwest, which also happens to be in the west, so on the days when I feel a need to afix a label, I call myself a 21st century western artist -- capturing what the west is today -- not so much cowboys and Indians as it is stretches of still unpopulated space, isolated corners of reflection and thought.

Western art has always stood strong for representational painting -- during long periods of time when popularity went to the abstract world, western art remained faithful to artists who painted with rendering in mind. At the same time, western art exhibited a flexibility toward subject matter: without relaxing so completely that it embraced urban graffiti scenes and subway vistas, western art embraced the concept that progress happens, life changes, the world and lifestyle of 100 years ago has evolved into the world and lifestyle of today, and just as there were incredible subjects to paint in 1909, there are incredible subjects to paint in 2009.

Original fine art oil painting by Steve Henderson Fine Art.