Thursday, May 10, 2012

Working For A Living

I’m sitting here looking at a beautiful postcard with S. L. Donaldson’s Seagull “With Intention”.

I’m a fan of S. L.’s art and I’ve made no secret of it, I may have mentioned it a time or two before and will probably mention it again from time to time, but this time I want to talk not about her art, which is wonderful, but about her relentless self-promotion and the professional manner in which she presents her art.

Okay, you’d rather sell your 48 X 64 canvas with the antique gilt frame and to tell the truth so would I, okay not the gilt frame, I want all gilt frames to be exiled to the Bermuda Triangle or given to the Loch Ness Monster and kept by Nessie for all time so I’d want to sell the canvas but not the gilt frame, okay?

Sure big sales are what we all look for. They are fantastic, they make you feel wonderful and they pad out the ole bank account like nothing else. Unfortunately they just don’t come along all that often. Sure, Kelle Herrick and Kim Wurster, Dutch Mostert and Susan D’Amico can sell all of the big commissions they want, but for most of us, even the gifted ones, big commissions come along only once in a while.

You can enter art shows and shoot for the big money pries and the cost of a few dollars in entry fees make for a good gamble when it comes to bringing home the bacon, but even that has a painful limit. You may be great but so are a lot of folks and the jurors just can’t help but notice, they may even notice other artists and that does not bode well for you and your income stream.

The truth is it is hard to make enough money to support your art habit. It will always be easier to spend money for art than it is to make that money back.

This is where S.L. comes in, you go out and look under every rock, leaf and twig and I guarantee you won’t find a single little blue man; they’ve all been displaced by S. L.’s marketing materials.

Yeah I know that’s the same sort of stuff that you keep getting in your mailbox and you don’t look at any of it you just sort through, pick out the bills and the letters from old, lost, cousin Phenilla and toss the rest. But if it is some of S. L.’s arresting art material you won’t. You’ll stop dead in your tracks, take a long look, maybe even read the information and then save the card, thank you note, napkin to press between the leaves of your Shooter’s Bible. (Hey this is Oregon and there are a lot more religiously outdoorsy people than there are faithful, or maybe its just another kind of faithful and that isn’t such a bad thing cause you can do yourself a lot of good spending time enjoying the marvels and wonders of nature instead of sitting in a crowded building pressed up against all those other people who may have strange and deadly illnesses just contaminating the air every time they breath and you won’t have to worry about that if you and Smokey the Bear are out in the wilderness enjoying the sunshine and the tress.) {Let’s all agree, Smokey’s middle name is THE. None of this revisionist Smokey Bear stuff. Same bunch of apologists want to add a the to Bucky Beaver’s name and you know Ipana won’t like that a bit so just don’t do it.}

So S. L. keeps finding ways to get the word out about some pretty wonderful art. Now you could and so could I understand this if her art was lousy, but it isn’t, it’s great and that’s why we save all of her promotional material cause even the little giv’me stuff has great art and why isn’t your art getting the same treatment?

You don’t think it works, it’s just too crass, it takes time away from important work, it dilutes the impact of the “real” art work and besides it costs money.

Yeppers it does. That’s what I was talking about when I said it was easier to spend money on art than it was to make money from art, but if you want to stop doing the one and start doing the other then you have to, absolutely have to self promote.

Okay, I can see not spending money on cards, thank you cards, greeting cards, but why aren’t you out there finding some place to show your work? Just how many of you have contacted North Point Real Estate about showing your art in their office? What about Josie’s on Broadway? Or the High Tide Café in Charleston? I know some of you think putting up your art in a beauty salon is too cheap and dangerous with all of the chemicals but those dust bunnies in the closet where you are stacking your art right now can’t be good for it.

What about all of the charities you support. Now I know all of you are not shut-ins like me, a hermit coach by inclination and a curmudgeon by choice so why haven’t you had a word with your minister about something near and dear to his heart? Does your ministry have a food pantry? Can you do something with your art to help get the word out?

Does the library need more books? Maybe a bright poster could help. Just remember Lautrec and Mucha made their bones painting posters and no one thinks they were minor artists and hacks.

Maybe you could just donate art to the Coos Art Museum and help their never-ending funding crisis. Yes, art is hard to pay for and the museum always needs funds. Maybe a piece of local, high quality art could bring both attention and money their way?

Me? The van is full of my work. I meant to get out and try to place it today but I had a bad night, a legacy from my time with the Croakers last summer and couldn’t manage it. But there’s always tomorrow and the truck is already loaded.

Have you even been out to Easy Lane Frames and Select Gallery to see their new show? Jane and Ken do more for the art community than almost anyone in Coos Bay and they don’t try to gouge the artists to do it. Did you get a picture in their show? If you didn’t at least go look at the art.

Why? Because they have racks of greeting cards from artists just like you and that might just make you ashamed that you haven’t tried to get your art working.

You can’t count on the sale of a major piece every week, but you might just be able to sell a few cards every month. There’s this little thing coming up Sunday, Mother"s Day. Yeah, if you’d had a card in one of those racks maybe some one would have bought it for Mom and then you’d have made a mother happy, sold a few pennies worth of your stuff, made a dime or two for Jane and Ken and feel like a working artists. And that is the whole point.

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