How do I know when a piece is the right one?
I was thinking, last night as I was painting, about art sales, confidence and the nature of art sales.
It’s impossible to know what any given person is going to like. You never know which work is going to speak to whom, or why, or how. It occurred to me that I am not creating art just for me, I am creating art for that one person out there that this piece will speak to. Therefore, I don’t have the right to judge one of my pieces, or scrub it out because I don’t like where it ended up.
I think art is a lot like love. you don’t know when it will hit or how, you don’t know why it happens and I don’t think you can force it, it just has to happen.
Some pieces I’ve sold I’ve thought – Why? what made this piece the one for you? a recent big sale was of a piece I didn’t particularly care for. a lot of paintings I’m proud of have had some lukewarm responses.
I think the key is to create, with less fear for the consequences. canvas isn’t that expensive, and you never know what is going to pop out to a particular person. what if one of the paintings I scrubbed out was a true match for someone? I need to just paint, not to think about where it’s going to sell, or who it’s going to appeal to. I don’t want to release crap on the world, I think I need to still exercise some quality control, if the groundwork is wrong then I need to start again, but no more almost finishing a work and then scrubbing it in a fit of pique – I might be killing someone’s true love.
I was listening to Sunday in the Park with George and pondering the lyrics. “stop worrying where you’re going, move on” “stop worrying if your vision is new, let others decide that, they usually do- just keep moving on.”
Crisis Averted
I was worried that I was running out of inspiration.. but crisis averted! now I have even more ideas. I am very excited again. I can see them blossoming in my head. speaking of blossoming, I laid the groundwork for one today with an enormous flower in her hair. I seem to be gong a little insane on the color details, I am working on new things I have never tried before, bringing in all the stuff I learned doing my Flemish technique stuff. So far there will be eyes, tattoos, jewelry, flowing and richly colored fabrics (including chiffon!) and plant life. I am contrasting a lot of the sketchy nudes with detailed bits and bobs – some of which are bloody hard! do you have any idea how insane it is to paint crystal?
My current setup is to work a couple of days on the nude, then let it dry and slowly glaze up the detail piece. The eye above had about 4 or 5 glazes added. I am overlapping while everything dries, I have about 4 pieces on the go right now. I still don’t know about pricing, I am concentrating on painting right now, the prices will follow soon.
The press releases are going out, I have sent what I have done to the gallery and to Melinda and Frank. I have also sent out the local ones (which reminds me to follow up tomorrow as my email is down still). we will probably sort out the catalog soon, and the invitations are arriving in the next day or so – I am so excited! It’s really coming together.
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