Sorting Out Approaches
I've spent a lot of time lately researching different approaches to painting careers, and taking stock of just what kind of art I am doing and which direction best suits it. My academic background started me off on an academic approach, one I didn't question until Steve came into my life. The academic approach was rife with angst and difficulties on many levels, and was rarely, if ever, satisfying because it only works if you are working and showing in areas which support that approach. An academic approach in isolation only feeds one's sense of alienation.
Now, my first love was music. I still love it, insofar as I am still able to hear it. I have a strong intuitive, visceral response to it, and to this day a synaesthetic response, as color and light make me hear music in my head and vice-versa. When I paint from the solar plexus, I paint muscially. Compositions are determined as muscially as they are visually. I don't do this in an academic approach, because it requires that I approach from the head, from an analytical point of view rather than from intuitive knowledge. It is much more difficult to "know" when the work is going well or has the "it" factor, and thus, for me, the process is much less satisfying.
Steve got me to shake off the academic approach and paint from a pure art-element approach. Over time it looks less and less like his work and more and more decidedly like my own as I tap into the intuitive knowledge I have rather than the academic blather and its attendant negativity from my past. Thus, the things I've been painting are completely me.
The most amazing thing about all of this is the fact that so many different kinds of people really like my work and buy it. This is the best thing that has come out of the gallery and the art fair--given a wide range of art to choose from, more people have purchased my work than any other single artist's. Of course my prices are not overly high, but I've topped $400 for a 24 x 36, and the market around here is not particularly wealthy. Thus I have gained the confidence to keep painting and to start planning to enter art fairs and other venues where art in my price range and style is likely to sell. They haven't bought my art because they feel sorry for me.
That last sentence isn't a joke. On and off over the course of my life I have been treated like the village idiot because of my deafness, and to this day there are many people who are either nervous around me or who want to patronize me, treat me like a charity case. Nick and I were talking about this yesterday, as certain parties of our mutual acquaintance are unquestionably freaked out by my communication difficulty. I can see why such a provincial attitude was prevalent in rural areas in the 50's and 60's, but in the 21st century with everyone and everything out there and in your face, it seems ridiculous. Yet there it is, and thus I still have good reason to look gift horses in the mouth.
Anyway, the musical and intuitive connection is important, and I'm trying to work it into an artist's statement, which is sadly lacking on both my resume and website. So I am going to stop researching grants and such and just focus on painting and expanding real-world connections to art fairs and galleries. Our friend Dennis Davis, who is himself a well-established artist who sells his work at the larger art fairs for thousands of dollars, has said repeatedly that my work would do well at the fairs. He's a good businessman and hard-headed about markets. If this is the art that suits me best to paint, then I'd best take it to where it's likely to be most appreciated.
Now, my first love was music. I still love it, insofar as I am still able to hear it. I have a strong intuitive, visceral response to it, and to this day a synaesthetic response, as color and light make me hear music in my head and vice-versa. When I paint from the solar plexus, I paint muscially. Compositions are determined as muscially as they are visually. I don't do this in an academic approach, because it requires that I approach from the head, from an analytical point of view rather than from intuitive knowledge. It is much more difficult to "know" when the work is going well or has the "it" factor, and thus, for me, the process is much less satisfying.
Steve got me to shake off the academic approach and paint from a pure art-element approach. Over time it looks less and less like his work and more and more decidedly like my own as I tap into the intuitive knowledge I have rather than the academic blather and its attendant negativity from my past. Thus, the things I've been painting are completely me.
The most amazing thing about all of this is the fact that so many different kinds of people really like my work and buy it. This is the best thing that has come out of the gallery and the art fair--given a wide range of art to choose from, more people have purchased my work than any other single artist's. Of course my prices are not overly high, but I've topped $400 for a 24 x 36, and the market around here is not particularly wealthy. Thus I have gained the confidence to keep painting and to start planning to enter art fairs and other venues where art in my price range and style is likely to sell. They haven't bought my art because they feel sorry for me.
That last sentence isn't a joke. On and off over the course of my life I have been treated like the village idiot because of my deafness, and to this day there are many people who are either nervous around me or who want to patronize me, treat me like a charity case. Nick and I were talking about this yesterday, as certain parties of our mutual acquaintance are unquestionably freaked out by my communication difficulty. I can see why such a provincial attitude was prevalent in rural areas in the 50's and 60's, but in the 21st century with everyone and everything out there and in your face, it seems ridiculous. Yet there it is, and thus I still have good reason to look gift horses in the mouth.
Anyway, the musical and intuitive connection is important, and I'm trying to work it into an artist's statement, which is sadly lacking on both my resume and website. So I am going to stop researching grants and such and just focus on painting and expanding real-world connections to art fairs and galleries. Our friend Dennis Davis, who is himself a well-established artist who sells his work at the larger art fairs for thousands of dollars, has said repeatedly that my work would do well at the fairs. He's a good businessman and hard-headed about markets. If this is the art that suits me best to paint, then I'd best take it to where it's likely to be most appreciated.
posted by meg at 9:26 AM
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