8:24 AM 08/31/2003
Instead of an organised, focused paper, this month I am just going to ramble a little...
In a few hours it will be September again... my birth month, and my favourite month for various reasons, one of which is that it is the end of summer heat, and the beginning of autumn, which is my favourite season. Because it is my birth month, I usually do some retrospection every year at this time, so I may throw in a little of that, as well, just for good measure.
I'm crossing the line now, into pursuing painting professionally, both in earning a living, and in treating painting in the fine arts with the respect I feel that it deserves 'as a profession', but which it more often than not, does not receive, either from its practitioners, or from society at large. Balancing these two... making enough money to live on, and trying to make a lasting positive contribution to the arts... at the same time... is a lot easier said, than done.
I have made some decisions about how to pursue these goals, that I think are important, and 'on the right track', but which will make matters financially rigorous, especially at the outset.
I have decided not to pursue gallery representation, or, for the time being, at least, not to participate in showing my work at local 'art type' festivals or shows. Instead, I have decided to show, promote, and sell my work on-line, on my website, and on eBay. The selling prices are low on my website, and even lower on eBay... but eBay has tremendous advertising power, so in effect, the money that I forgo by selling at auction, has tremendous advertising value. I have made my current motto, which is on all of my emails, in the signature line: 'A business is as honest as its advertising', and I do my very best to live up to that motto... and my 'best', happens to be pretty darn good.
While having decided not to pursue gallery representation, I have not decided to reject gallery representation per se, if it is offered to me. This looks like a fairly arrogant statement at first glance, but I believe it is a good strategy, and that eventually, galleries will come calling, at which time, I will have my choice of who I want to represent me, as opposed to a scenario where I am the supplicant, going from door to door, with my hat in my hands.
By selling my own work, and developing my own client list, I am learning what it takes to sell what I produce, and developing my own client list, and a history of sales, and a going rate, for my work. Galleries are, I would guess, deluged with prospective sellers, most of whom have no client base, and are unknown to the public. By writing and publishing articles, maintaining a newsletter, and selling my own work, I am making myself into a better prospective client. If there is one thing I have learned in my life, it is that people who make something of themselves, are sought after by others, and people who expect others to make something out of them, are not. Therefore, I will continue to make something of myself, and when I have done a good enough job, I will know I have succeeded, by the people who seek me out. Better to spend my time making something of myself, than going door to door, looking for someone else, to take on the task for me.
EBay affords me the opportunity sell my own work quickly and efficiently, and to gather a client list together. Once the list is large enough, so that it can purchase everything I sell and then some, I can begin gradually to inch my prices up, a little at a time, until I reach the point where I can actually afford to live, exclusively from what I paint.
EBay also presents me with some very brutal arithmetic to deal with, at the outset... and this too is a positive, because it forces me to develop my painting style... *not* in the direction where I wind up painting what people buy, just because it sells, but in the direction where I can paint more of what I want to paint, faster and more efficiently, by employing 'economy of means'... literally the 'saying more, and more clearly' of what it is I have to say in paint... with fewer extraneous and distracting details.
7:22 AM 09/01/2003
Summer seems to have disappeared in a weekend... outside, Labour Day is beginning in a chilly autumn rain.
Returning to the thread of my monologue... I think it is a good thing, that at the moment, economic necessity is forcing me to paint long, hard hours, and 'sell for cheap'... almost certainly, much cheaper than the actual value of my work. This 'running of the gauntlet', is forcing me to develop 'painter's muscles', that I would otherwise possibly not force myself to develop, if I was not under financial duress. In one way, it sucks, and in another way, it is good, and I can see that it is only a temporary condition, that will work itself out in time... if and only if... the work is worthy.
In addition to my work at the easel, I am having to spend a serious amount of time selling my work, collecting the proceeds, and managing the book and tax work, that has to be done before anything can safely be taken as profit, or a living wage.
There is no good way around this, as far as I am concerned.
I am an individual intent on managing my own website, my own auctions, my own finances, my own taxes, and my own life in general, in addition to my painting. I believe that even if at some time in the future, I wind up delegating some of these tasks to other, it is foolishness not to know how to do all of them, and to actually do all of them myself, first.
In my past, I owned a small refinishing business, and trusted taxes, licenses, accounting, and other financial matters to others, and I rank that experience, as one of the greatest mistakes I ever made. I wound up owning a business that was hemmoraging money at every point where I delegated responsibility, and I... working myself frantically to make up the financial bleeding, until finally my own heath was compromised, to the extent that I lost everything. Delegating utterly essential tasks, (like finance and taxes) to others, that one does not know how to do one's-self, seems to me to be a mistake of business killing (and possibly business-man killing) proportion... and one mistake, that I have no intention of making twice in my life.
I'm not sure how much longer it will actually take, for me to achieve full financial autonomy as a painter in the fine arts, but I would guess... and have set as a target goal... about 16 more months... December 31, 2004.
I am happy that Autumn is arriving soon. Some time during the month of September, I will complete my 100th oil painting for the year... all done since July 5th, at a rate of around one per day, every day. Some people might think that hurrying through 100 painitngs like this, just for the numbers, is silliness. I don't think so, though. I think that the extremely intense period of practice, taught me things about painting... and the *will* to paint, that I could never have learned, at a more leisurely pace.
One thing for sure that I learned, was how to capture an idea in paint, on canvas, before it has a chance to evapourate, or morph into another, different idea... sort of like taking a snapshot, of my brain.
If that is all that I learned how to do, between the 4th of July, and Labour Day, it was well worth the effort.... and this article, which probably helped me to comprehend consciously... what my brain was having me do, all along.
Back to Work!