Tuesday, May 15, 2012

Food for Thought

It's not about how well you do something or how much you like it and like doing it. It all comes down to what you do being trendy. You have to have that demand, a lot of it. That produces profit and success. You have to decide if you want to sell your work or not. If you do, how much? If not, what are you going to do with it?
This is my predicament: fresh out of college (maybe a few days kind of fresh) with an art degree to be mailed to me, but no demand, no profit, and no place to put these paintings. I know I'm not the only one. So what do you do?
I have no idea. Hang them in your house? Give them as gifts? Stop painting so you don't ever have to do this again? Start working smaller?
You can look for Calls to Artists and keep your work in galleries so you don't have to store them. But once again, lack of demand. Everyone wants to look at it but no one wants it. I probably couldn't even give them away. Seriously, if I walked up to someone I knew and asked them if they wanted a painting, for free, I'm sure they would have an excuse as to why they didn't.
That's what they don't teach you in art school: how to sell your work.
They teach you to be contemplative, purposeful, master techniques, practice, edit, and research. But they don't tell you that you will spend your entire life working on series of work that won't sell. If you don't want to sell, that's fine, but if you do, then you have a problem. Your work isn't commercial enough. No one wants to hang your abstract painting in their den because they don't get it, it doesn't match their color scheme, they can buy a cheaper, prettier one at Pier 1, or whatever. And that sucks.
So when your friends are out without you, you have no money, no place to put everything, and you're depressed; what you do next really says a lot about you. At least make an effort to make something of your work before you decide to quit forever.

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