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03/08/2005: "Freedom of Choice"

Last week I visited an artist. We sat in his spacious studio – a beautiful place wholly set up for artistic and highly intellectual lifestyle. We looked at his work. Then he uncovered the latest – large format canvasses. Though originally trained in painting and visual arts, once, in a strange turn of fate he tried his hand in pottery and ceramics. He loved it so much that he devoted next 20 years to it producing work of incredible quality. He constantly experimented with the knowledge gained, learned more and taught others. Until one day he rediscovered oils and canvases again.

He spent five years painting large, well planned and highly detailed images that each takes months to complete. A substantial body of work has accumulated. This is the artists who has been exhibiting his pottery for a decade in the best galleries, selling well and being accompanied by favourable reviews! However, when he approached galleries about exhibiting and/or representing his paintings, something unexpected started happening – gallery managers, after taking some time to do some huffing and puffing, scratching and shaking their heads, finally would say something along the lines: “Have you done any new pottery lately? I could give you show any time”. No, the artist has not done any new pottery! No, he does not want to have a pottery show. He has moved away from it searching for new forms of expression. He has discovered a new medium which opened new possibilities in his creative world. He has not touched clay since insisting on oils and canvas no mater what. “I can not be told how to create my art”, he tells me not without sadness. He believes in his newly discovered images and ideas. However, he is pressed financially, feels isolated and ignored, rapidly loosing his support base among gallery managers and buyers. The reality is – his paintings do not generate even a fraction of interest that his pottery and ceramics once did.

I prefer his pottery as well. So do people I talk to! His works in clay seem to be so much more developed, passionate, expressive, exquisite and very alive. Meanwhile the oil paintings stay firmly on a single symbol level. I respect his choice. I admire his passion for his recent work, but I do have doubts about the immediate results. Would it take a decade to master the new tools and ideas? How can I tell that to him? I believe the choice of media and the subject matter belongs solely to the artist. The world of self-expression is creator’s domain and there for him is or her to define. Uniqueness is born from individuality. Who is to say if he or she is taking foolish gamble, being stubborn or ignoring the consequences?


Ausra Larbey
Melbourne

Replies: 9 Comments

on Wednesday, March 16th, John Sullivan said

I am returning to the potter's wheel after several years of absence, and have lost all of my glaze recipes. If you have any glaze recipes that you would like to pass on, it would be greatly appreciated.

on Monday, March 14th, Rick LaFleur said

Well Dave (no email?)I never said to live in a vaccum, and not try to sell your work. What I did say the guy needs to find galleries that are interested in paintings and not ceramics. I sell my work and I don't pander to galleries. No I do not do commissions, but if I did it would be my way or no way.Time to change "your" underwear!

on Saturday, March 12th, Clint said

These market type of demands have also shaped the Inuit art world. Years ago, Inuit carvers did only small pieces so they could carry them around from camp to camp. Market demand played a role in their shift to do larger and more polished carvings. Even dancing bears are a result of market demand as some Inuit do not consider them art.

on Friday, March 11th, Dave said

Well Rick, I guess one can stay gutter wrenching broke their entire life, but I bet you and everyone else, has catered to someone else's wants, some where, some how.

Ever do a commission? Not many are open.

Yeah satisfaction of making the work is exhilarating, but....haven't you ever gotton a big buck sale? Man, that's like change yer underwear stuff ....woo hoo!!!!

on Friday, March 11th, Rick LaFleur said

The problem is not the artist, but rather his choice in galleries! A gallery that sells pottery or glass art is not the gallery he should be persuing. The painter needs to go to a place that deals paintings. An artist always hopes for success in their endevours but success is not what drives artists. Passion and volition of ones inner expression is one drive for an artist. Satisfaction comes from the activity, not sales. Sales and recognition are secondary. An artist friend of mine said "I'm not a dress maker, I'm A painter" meaning he doesn't tailer his paintings for other people, but rather for his own satisfaction.

on Friday, March 11th, Mark Brockman said

I think your friends situation goes to show how much control a gallery or dealer has, or can have over an artist. I have been at this journey of painting for over thirty years and still get turned down by galleries. Who knows why? I have stopped caring why, now I do my work, and let it stand, in time things will and have happened. Success is not being in a gallery or making money at ones art, it is creating the best work one can at that time. If I have put all the emotion I can in a work, if I have painted it the very best I can....well....Hell with the galleries and dealers. Some where, some one, will see its worth.

on Thursday, March 10th, Paul said

On reading your blog Ausra,I thought of Julian Schnabel almost immediatley,he who combined broken pottery with paint to create his huge broken plate paintings in the eighties,what was amazing was the way in which he glued or somehow managed to fix those bits and peices of ceramics and embedded them into a canvas,and I wonder if they are still sticking together now,as we know glued stuff tends to weaken with time.I once did a few paintings on plates but whole plates attached to a board a solid construction,but they weighed a ton,with ten or more plates together.

on Wednesday, March 9th, jodi said

I think it's a bigger question - not as simple as what sells and maybe not even what gives the artist satisfaction. "Pottery" and "craft" are tough words to hear from those educated and dealing in fine art. Having studied for a time "ceramic design", as my studio mates and I choose to call it, the artist is constantly confined not only by the materials, but by the greater arts population attitude towards working in clay.

My guess is that your friend will move on to working in a more three dimensional medium - maybe these large canvases are just a transition to something even better - drawing from years of working in the round. I'm sure your artist friend does not feel the 20 years of clay are lost years. I'd look forward to see what 5 more years of being "confined" to a canvas bring!

Agreed - don't want be in those shoes...

on Wednesday, March 9th, Dave said

If he wants to start over, let him start over. Art without risk is bland art.

I can csrtainly understand wanting to move on from pottery. As with all crafts, the form is given in pottery. It's a vase, it's a bowl, etc. The fine arts, which will insult many, is only painting and sculpture. Nothing is given in the fine arts as how the form is given in crafts, and the dimension is given in photography. Losing 20 years by working with given's...tough break. What do they say...."don't give up your day job"?

But maybe it will be interesting how he now tackles it all.

Glad I'm not in his shoes.