by Sandra Haynes on 3/26/2010 1:22:43 AM
2 Comments
Hi Friends,
The art market is still alive and happy, and now I can quit worrying about it. My first traveling-to-it show of the season, this one in Great Falls, Montana, was a success and people are buying art.
Cheerfully, I will lift a quote from Seth Godin's blog....."Anxiety is nothing but repeatedly experiencing failure in advance." Seems I still wonder.....ok.......worry, that the show season will be a dismal failure based on what little news I do hear of the world. This only happens when I pay attention to all the bad news.
News on TV and newspapers is purposely limited in my house so that it doesn't influence my thinking. And reading constant doom and gloom does have a dampening affect, whether you realize it or not.
Influence is a subtle and sneaky thing that controls most of our lives. As artists, do we really need a negative outlook? Do we need to have a limiting factor in our creative thinking? Truly, if anything of substance occurs in the world, you will hear about it. Meanwhile, your job is to create.
Worrying about how the selling will go or if the next painting will be "good enough" is a self-limiting way of viewing it. Why program yourself to fail by thinking about failing? Or listening as "they" pronounce you doomed to fail because the economy is so bad. We are in the mother of all economic corrections.....I didn't miss that.
However, think about the joy your art will bring to someone. It's your gift to the world. Beautiful things never go out of style and this is a chance to keep striving to create better art for a waiting world.
As I will be at the Western Heritage Art Show in Great Falls, Montana for awhile and miss the next blog post time, I wanted to share something with you that I found completely fascinating.
This observation and photo were sent to me by a friend in China:
Check out the attached picture. Notice these two guys on the tallest part of the building way up towards the top of the split towers to the left.
No safety harness. A single strand of cotton rope (not a stronger hemp or synthetic). Their "seats" are hunks of old wood just notched on the ends for the rope. There is a rope-brake sort of thing at the top, but once they start, they "hand-over-hand" and paint their way up from the bottom, get to the top, release the brake, and "hand-over-hand" back to the bottom without touching the wall.
Oh......and for painting equipment they have a roller and bucket of paint.
Just stop and think about the scope of this job.....not to mention the threat of imminent death.
Makes going to the easel to paint every day seem like a bubble bath.
A few years ago I was in an area that I knew was frequently inhabited by Rocky Mountain Sheep. As a wildlife artist I really did want to take the time to watch them. So here I am in this rocky terrain with big boulders strewn all over the landscape as it gets increasingly steep up to the ridge summit.
Peeling my best sheep eyes, my focus was toward the top where the sheep trails were just barely visible on the sheer rock walls. Knowing the sheep were there, but not spotting them right away, my concentration was keen.
After studying this wild landscape hard for several minutes, a small movement in the foreground, about a 1000 yards in front of me, caught my attention. A dozen sheep were there just going about their lives, doing sheep stuff, while I was focused over their backs way up on the mountain side.
While I would like to be kind to myself and say they blended in well with the habitat, they didn't blend that good. I mean they were right in front of me. Ever since I have wondered what else have I missed? What really good ideas for marketing art or creating art have I overlooked while focusing on a distant idea?
One project that I took on recently was doing ACEO small format (3.5x2.5") paintings and selling them on EBay. It was an experiment to see if there really was a market there. It didn't take long to get disenchanted with selling them really cheap and I had not figured in the time to photo them, posting in the auctions, writing the descriptions, paperwork, package them for shipping.....you know.....the details.
Because I was doing at least one a day, this amounted to a lot of time.
So about the time that my whining was starting to get annoying, I realized what I had learned and it was rather a lot. It's an excellent exercise in learning what colors really can get a painting to stand out and it was a dramatic lesson in what sells to what I call a "cold" audience. Meaning it was not connected to a particular region or show, so I was selling cold with no way of even guessing what they might be interested in.
About the time I decided to throw in the towel, these little paintings have even started increasing in selling price....not impressive money by any measure, but enough to get my attention. So how long will the experiment go on? With a new attitude about this venture, I'm just focusing on the close up picture.....just paint the paintings that I know stand a good chance of selling well and leave the far-off, top of the cliff things to work themselves out. This lesson applies to all the art work that comes from my easel now.
Now and then, though, I look to the mountain tops too.
Announcing a new category of art works, PAINTING A DAY PROJECT, on my web site.
This cheerful miniature painting, "Summer Flowers" can be found along with a wide array of other subjects.
As a study of color and brushstrokes, each is distilled down to an essence and usually
measure 2 1/2x 3 1/2".
"Summer Flowers" oil
3 1/2x 2 1/2" $50
I paint them as a celebration of life.....I hope you enjoy them, too.
Give them as memorable gifts or as an addition to your own collection of original small format paintings.
(You do have one, don't you?)
Go to "Art Works" and click on Painting A Day Project for more details and to view these little jewels.
(Note: these small works can now be found in "Miniature Paintings".)
"The purpose of life is not to be happy--but to matter,
to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some
difference that you have lived at all."
Leo Rosten
Hi Friends,
I love this quote.....it says so much in just a few short words. The first thing I think of every time I read it is,
why in the heck can't you be happy too? It may not be the purpose of life, but why can't it be a part?
In the last few years, while I was learning some of life's toughest earth lessons, many times there wasn't a whole lot to smile about. Until I finally got it.......live in the moment and be open to the possibilities for smiling.
My little nut case kitten, that I have written about before, gives me many opportunities to smile and an abundance of outright belly laughs. With all the serious trials in her life, she still lives each moment with a tornado force enthusiasm. And she takes me along with her.
Creating and marketing art is hard work......many long hours, and by definition it is a solitary endeavor created in your head and executed by your own hand....alone. Getting so far into your creative zone for too long a time is going to show in your art and your attitude.
So work hard, make a difference that you have lived at all, but do it for you too.
Find something that makes you smile.....or let it find you. You aren't going to get extra points in this life for deadly seriousness.
This is one of those reasons to smile....if you listen closely you can hear the frogs and crickets singing around the water's edge, the gentle summer breeze bringing the scent of pine trees and water. If you look closely you can see my smile as I painted it.
This landscape painting is so new it doesn't have a name yet and the great part is.....it measures 2 1/2x 3 1/2" small!
Color Outside the Lines (with enthusiasm!)
All my best,
Sandra
