Replies: 23 Comments
on Wednesday, June 20th, Toni Seger said
"and bad news being good news... or at least news."
I think art may be the most difficult forum to determine when news actually is bad.
For example, artistic controversy though discomforting is often an effective means of attracting attention to a work and/or an artist. Again, for better and for worse; the more controversy, the more attention.
For this reason, 'shock art' seeks to offend just to get people's attention.
on Wednesday, June 20th, jose said
A case of no news definitely not being good news and bad news being good news... or at least news.
on Tuesday, June 19th, Toni Seger said
Jose, I enjoy this forum as well. It does open up a lot of windows on people's thinking.
Here's another way to look at this. Although the path a work of art might take can be disturbing to the artist, one has to consider the more disturbing alternative which is a lack of movement; to simply be ignored.
"When a tree falls in the forest and no one is around to hear it, there is no sound."
on Monday, June 18th, jose said
That was the kind of reassurance I guess I was trying to hear, Toni. Again, this is a 'new dimension' opening up before me and It's good to hear different people's point of view, which is one of the reasons I enjoy this forum. Thanks.
on Monday, June 18th, Toni Seger said
Jose, you're correct. It's for better and worse.
As a former art dealer, I can say there are ways and times when movement in the secondary market can and does impact an artist's primary market.
However, generally speaking, movement of any kind even when it appears to be negative or have negative aspects still carries more positive weight than no movement.
on Monday, June 18th, jose said
I do agree with you Toni, for better 'and' for worse.
on Monday, June 18th, Toni Seger said
As soon as they cut the umbilical cord, babies begin their life long journey away from their origins and out into the world.
So it is with art; for better or for worse.
on Monday, June 18th, solaristravels@gmail.com">andy said
Have you guys seen www.smartnu.com, its fun
on Saturday, June 16th, jose said
Gracias Raquel, yo tambien los olvido hasta que los ponga en una muestra, y luego me despido, jamás podría seguir pintando con todos ‘mis hijos’ al redor de mi... pero hay vezes quando regressan quando menos lo esperas.
Toni, when they’re done they’re done. I was going to title this blog emancipation because that is what happens to the work once we are done with it. They [the paintings, in my case] become unbound, they come into their own and I loose my grip on them. Their life and the lives of the people they affect, or not, is beyond me. Maybe because of the speed at which I had to rewrite this post [I had initially come up with a continuation on Walt’s previous and still ongoing blog, but then decided not to] my thoughts didn’t come out too clearly and I gave the impression that I need to control things. Not really though, I mean, imagining that they are doing well wherever they are doesn’t consume me – I give it some thought, initially, but It never gets to the point where I worry. Perhaps because I forget them it surprises me when I see them again, especially where I least expected to find them. But ultimately my concern about these recent auctions is really a commercial consideration. I was left wondering to what extent a bad re-sale at the auction house might affect the prices I am trying to aim for at present, a point Andrew picked up on in his comment.
on Friday, June 15th, Toni Seger said
No, a painting can't be said to be a killer.
My husband and I had a similar experience and also felt somewhat guilty about it. It involved a novel he wrote about a person who is losing their mind. An agent expressed interest who we didn't know had recently suffered a mid-life crisis. While reading it, she experienced a mental relapse and had to be hospitalized...
In a weird way, it was a compliment...
on Friday, June 15th, Raquel Sarangello said
Cuando finalizo una obra ...me despido casi inmediatamente, de lo contrario jamás podré hacerlo
on Tuesday, June 12th, ron said
I agree with you Mark. My wife also thinks I should keep everything! It is all about the process, not about the product necessarily. The detachment is inevitable and ultimately beneficial. I have never felt obsessive about my work although I have kept some work in my personal collection. My galleries in NY were my outlet. Speaking of the creative process you might all want to review my new website about creativity now that I am retired. I have been an Art educator for 40 years. My info is now posted on www.theoriginalwindow.com . 'All for Art and Art for all'. Deveolping the creative impulse that we are born with is what producing is all about. Share the product and keep creating,creating,creating...the next product will even be better.
on Monday, June 11th, Lynda Lehmann said
I think as soon as we put a price on a work we have sort of severed the umbilical, by conceding to our desire for and the demands of commerce. I'm very involved in a painting when I'm doing it, can hardly bare to walk away. When it's finished (although they never REALLY are finished) I sometimes get into a sort of meditation on all the ways the piece could have been different, for better and worse. But as soon as I move on to another work, the earlier one becomes much less important.
I do enjoy my own paintings to some degree. I know the passion that went into them, so I would rather not sell, than sell them for such a low price that I would feel I am giving them away. On the other hand, my house is overflowing with art and I need to move stuff out of here. Luckily, I think I'm a lot more in love with the process than I am enamored of any of my paintings. I have just a few favorites.
on Monday, June 11th, Ellen said
The most unbelievable bickering occurred when I was doing commissioned dog portraits and an occasional cat portrait. I would arrive at my appointment and discuss the painting and fee with the clients. Every so often, if a couple was involved, one would comment about the fate of the portrait if they broke up. This once happened when I was preparing a wedding gift that the bride and groom were giving to each other! It also occurred when a coulple was gifting their 40th wedding anniversary! I try to be optimistic about life....I guess there are those out there who hedge their bets.
on Sunday, June 10th, jose said
Andrew, talking about couples who don't agree about our work, isn't it just awful that feeling you get when you find yourslf stuck in the middle of it? I mean its legitimate for them to disagree, obviously, but I find that sometimes the disagreeing gets a bit out of hand and they forget we are there. I tried to walk away once but they insisted on me staying by their side. bloody awful. Didn't sell the piece either.
Ellen thanks for joining in. At that level it's Art, or whatever other impression, doing whatever it has to do, like you say what we percieve as something awful and negative can be a release to others. Not that I agree with the way peace is obtained but who are we to judge.
on Saturday, June 9th, Ellen said
Walt-
I couldn't not write- I've had too much experience with suicides. Several people I know ended their lives in one way or another. My sibling committed suicide. I lived with the knowledge that it was inevitable for years before it happened. I believe that the impetus comes from within. Believe me, I tried to do everything externally to stop it.... You may have given the young man peace at the end.
on Saturday, June 9th, Ellen said
I feel the same detachment that Mark does once I complete a work. The only interest I have in a painting that is done is how to fix the flaws that I inevitably see. But I force myself to move on to new projects. I do get pleasure when someone tells me that about the emmotion (good ones) that my work generates. But the work itself holds no positive connection for me. On several occasions, I saw my own work and did not recognize it as mine....so detached .... However, Jose, I can relate to your feelings because I believe that we are the sum of our work. And recently I prooved this to myself. Sometimes I do graphics. For my publisher's birthday, I made a poster with 144 thumbnails of some of the projects on which we had worked. I was glad to see my progress because the piece was done chronilogically. Jose, you are a deep and sensitive soul who puts all of yourself into your work. Others of us do, too, and our different reactions are why art and life are so complex. I hope your works always find wonderful homes.
on Saturday, June 9th, Andrew said
What happens, or will happen, to our works? I know I have sold a couple of large pieces to couples who didn't agree about the work, usually older men with younger wives. I am certain that if these men die, their wives and children won't appreciate the work as much as the deceased did, and they may even throw them away. After all, people who like my work enough to buy it are needles in a hay stack, and many, many others tend to walk by them without looking.
And if this happens, then these works will start out on a new journey. When they were mine, and I was trying to sell them, they went from country to country, from one setting to another, sometimes art galleries, sometimes hotel lobbies, until they found a buyer. The next journey may find them abandoned, stuffed somewhere for storage, or even destroyed. It's just a different chapter of the same book, that I probably won't get to read. But it might be one of the best ones. That computer guy with your painting is a perfect example, Jose.
I also should mention that the second time a work is sold, unless it's by a very well known artist, it usually goes for a lot less than it did when the artist first sold it.
on Friday, June 8th, jose said
Mark, I guess that's also why this last auction left me unsettled... it was a commissioned work, I don't usually do them but in those days I needed the money. Walt, what Mark says about the person holding the gun doing the deed is how I see it too, my last comment would have been more pertinent in your blog but I decided to get out of that one after a point.
on Friday, June 8th, Mark said
Walt, a horrible connection for you to deal with, but I am sure your work was not a murderer, a gun doesn't kill, the person holding the gun does, the painting didn't kill the young man, the young man did.
On a lighter note I have had a poem and a song written about two seperate paintings years ago by two different people, trouble is I never got a copy of either and do not know who wrote them. A lesson in keeping better track of what has sold and who purchased them. I also have a painting I did as a commision for a Civilian Cival War group who raffled it off, hanging in the winners house in a place of honor (the winner tells me this every time I see him), trouble is I hate the painting, doesn't look like my work, not my subject (historical), guess that is why I hate commisions.
on Friday, June 8th, jose said
It is an ego thing no doubt about it, Mark. This isn't an obsession or anything though, it doesn't stop me from painting, but after that long winding discussion that seemed to go nowhere two blogs ago I trashed the blog I had written and had to come up with something new, fast. I need the same 'distance' and put the paintings away from view once they're done too, and I move on, but lately these incidents have crept in and even the ones that I thought were really far came suddenly near again, unexpectedly. Nothing I can't live with, and like I said it's part of the game, something I'll have to get used to.
Ouch! That’s another ball-game altogether, Walt. There’s no controlling that either… no matter how abstract you get.
on Friday, June 8th, walt said
I sold a piece once to the son of my landlord. It was a piece that dealt with the quote "what father would give his son a stone for a fish" by Christ.
It was for me a parable about my father and me as I grew up. It was two panels, done as an egg tempera. It had nearly won a prize in a local show but was beaten out by a rather badly done photograph. I was volunteering as a gallery helper for the exhibition so I was there as it all happened keeping my mouth shut. The juror decided my piece looked like the artist was too well trained and the photographer was obviously not. He decided that it was more important to reward a dilatant rather than a professional. He even decided that the framing was amaturish and requred the organization putting on the show to reframe the piece. Funny thing was that I knew the photographer. She was a faculty member at the same college as me with two degrees-- a BFA and an MFA. So much for jurors understanding what they think they understand.
Back to the parable piece. It was called Parable. The young man purchased it and within 3 months committed suicide. I couldn't believe it. He was young, successful, had a beautiful wife and two kids. It just knocked the wind out of me.
It was one of the oddest most devasting sales I ever made. We do tend to think of our work as our children. My turned out to be a murderer.
on Friday, June 8th, Mark said
We work hard on our creations, we put a lot of time, effort and emotion into each work, at least I do. With each new painting I try to go beyond the last, to see better, to hear better, to feel better what it is I am painting. Yes I want others to apreciate what I have done and I am honored whan a piece is hung with honor. Not so much for the painting but, well, here is an ego trip, for me. Yet you know what? When I compleate a painting it no longer matters to me, I have done what I could do and that emotion has passed and I am hopefuly into another work. truth is, once done I really do not care what happens to the work as I am only connected to it as I work on it (my wife does not agree with me on this). Once I have said what I have said, good or bad, successful or not, I move on. There may be times when a passage may keep me looking at the work as I felt is was successful, but only to store it in my memory to pull out at some time when needed in another painting. For some of us a work of art is like a child we raise and love forever, for me a work of art is a thought, an idea, an emotion, a message to devlope, to expose and put forth and then to put aside so as to be able to work on the next work of art. It is not as cold as it sounds, I need to put the work in another place where the emotional connection does not affect what I do next. Because too, I am so much into the moment when working that the afterwards is of no concern to me.
What happens when they leave home? Are they well taken care of? Do they end up in the place you think they deserve within their new home? Are they still loved as much by their new owners as when they were first taken from you? What happens to them if their owners break up, where do they go then? These are some questions I’ve been asking myself lately, not because I worry, but because I have been confronted with them in the past couple of months and I’ve been visualising some of the possible scenarios. The experience hasn’t been all that enjoyable.
