What gives a visual artist celebrity, success (or in some cases, cash) is a visual identity. It is called "style."

You know a painting was painted by an artist because you immediately recognize his or her identity in the style of the work. You know a Van Gogh, because his style was his alone. You know a Picasso when you see it (if you have even studied basic art appreciation, that is.)

Some visual artists have so pronounced and definitive styles that it is almost impossible to NOT recognize them.

Most of my art-life I have struggled with my "style." I worked in several different mediums, all the time experimenting with technique and method, materials and paint, trying to cobble together a "look" that would define my style. I gravitated from the realist to the abstractionist to the pop artist to the painter of landscapes.

I never truly defined my style in the process.

I do have a style of painting that appears in most of my work if you take the time to examine it, but the style that defines my work does not leap from the wall and make the viewer say, "That's a Jon Adams painting."

I have been studying the volume of my work for the past few months and reached a conclusion. I found a painting that I finished a few years ago that is the style I was trying to achieve. I painted it. I sold it. And I moved on, not recognizing it for what had been reached.

It is in the collection of a couple down in Columbus. The painting is of a California vineyard. When I think about the quality and design of my paintings, I always get a mind's eye vision of that painting.

I have another couple canvases underway. I am painting them in the "style" of that painting. (It is titled "Vineyard Sunset.")