Owl of Hard Wisdom is an artwork about the wisdom you get that you are not sure was worth the getting. Would you trade the wisdom you've gained from your struggles for a life of blissful ignorance? It’s about looking back on lousy situations, bad decisions, and broken relationships, aware that you wouldn’t make the same mistakes again, but despite your being a wiser person, wouldn’t it have been better if those things hadn’t happened?
The original started as an oil painting during a short time that Ty experimented with oil- that swirly sky above the owl is oil paint, but Ty gave up on oil because so much of his art is linework, and linework with oil is just about impossible. He went over the oil paint sky with heavy body acrylic to create the owl and ramskull, but in the end thought of the piece as an abysmal failure. However, short of artwork for a show Ty brought Hard Wisdom as filler and was astonished that it attracted a lot of attention and sold immediately. He made prints and greeting cards and to his delighted chagrin it’s still one of his top 24 artworks.
Meier mounted this print to a hand-painted art board, painted on some heavy gloss brushstrokes to give it depth, and lacquered it heavily to give it weight and glow.
