When is a print not a print and when is it fair to use or submit one to a show?
Well, the first and most important thing is, what does the prospectus say?
Yes, I do expect you to read through all of that stuff the organizer spent so much time on. No, it isn't just something you can shred and put in the cat box, and no you can't call at the last minute and ask if the organizer can send you another set, 'cause you shredded the first one and it's in the bottom of the cat box.
See the prospectus is the set of rules you have to play by if you want to be a part of any show. They don't just write up any old thing and send it out with the entry forms and the labels. They expect you to read all of it and follow instructions.
Back to prints, if the prospectus says no prints, probably they'll say no Giclee, then you don't have a question any more, you have an answer. If they don't say it you can go ahead and do it and see if they toss you out or you can do the polite thing and call the Big Boss and ask. No, the BB shouldn't call each of you individually and say, “Sure use a print if you have one.” Ees not their yob.
So you read the prospectus and they do not say no Giclee and you picked up the phone and called the BB and they said, no problem-o. You can enter a print.
.
Why in the world would you want to?
Why in the world would you not?
Art at least the kind I try to make is hard to come by. I sweat and swear and weep until beads of blood form on my forehead. (Okay, someone else did say that before me, but it bears repeating.) I dicker and fiddle and coax and wheedle until it is just right. And then some snot-nose buyer comes along and buys it and poof all of that arm-twisting and lamb-sacrificing is for naught. It's a good thing I'm not Kimberly Wurster or Pat Snyder or Susan Lehman or Kelle Herrick. They sell everything they do so fast that the paint is still drying.
That should be your problem. Yeah in another life. But even for the talented, gifted few the same thing applies, if you don't make a print of your work when it is in the loving arms of that special buyer, it is gone with the wind.
You're only interested in the next project. Once you're through, you're through. What about the upcoming holiday season? Who says New England has the only scenes which are worth putting on a card? True Currier and Ives sort of brain-washed us all, but that's just because they had printing presses when we were still cutting down trees for homes. They don't have the exclusive right to the gift-giving, holiday card thingy. They think the only holiday is Christmas.
I have a nephew. He's just back from Kandahar, thanks god, healthy and in the same configuration as when he left. The only thing he suffered from while keeping the world safe for me so that I could write a blog, go to the hospital, give up my gall-bladder and stare in horror at a mountain of medical bills
was...HOME.
Being an insufferable egoist I never gave a moments thought to what he might like, I just sent him the things that I liked. The sea and the sun, the scenes, the girls, the sports, the cars, the festivals and all of the stuff he left behind. I sent them along with each and every email and you know what? He loved them. In fact he asked that I put some of them on paper so that he could show them to his friends when he didn't have his laptop handy. Imagine that, someone who wants to see what I like? So I got the bright idea to make the images into cards and send them along with his care packages.
He asked that I make them on heavier stock 'cause with fifty or a hundred sweaty soldiers handling them the cards were wearing through in a coupla weeks and most of the guys were going to be stuck there for a year or more and wanted to be able to see what the homeland looked like.
Good thing I have a printer, heavy stock and a supply of envelopes, just for such a thing.
Now he's home with the wife and family and I sleep better knowing he isn't getting blown up by an IUD. But he still wants those images on cards. Seems he thinks he buddies still in the desert would like them as much as he did. He thinks they'll do better for Christmas card than some snow covered mountain. Gee I guess if you are stuck in the middle of a desert snow scenes don't look all that good.
So enough with the tales of Kandahar, back to prints. I managed to see S.L. Donaldson's 30 Parks By 30 Artists show. The images were captured on 4 X 5 or so panels, papers, Masonite board, parchment or note cards. Just the right size for wonderful holiday cards. But if they are the originals and there are not prints? I don't even like my nephew enough to send him the original files!
The good news is that not everyone sold all of their works. Okay, so that's not good news for the artists, but it is good news for the print portion of the show. They can make prints now and have them ready for the holidays, the next show or just to flood the overwork postal system with a few thousand more bits of mail in the big-time holiday rush.
And if you think woodland scenes, with trees and streams just aren't the right thing for Christmas, who says the the prints are supposed to become Christmas cards. What about starting a movement right here on the South Coast to bring back Thanksgiving. True National Food and Football-Over-Indulgence Day has been bumped by Halloween, but it can make a come back.
One slinky, wigged-out, horror hostess with the mostess can't squash the Great Pumpkin. Get off the sofa and crank up your print makers. Bandon even has a fellow doing Giclees right there in your own hometown. Just do it!
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