YOU'RE SO TALENTED!

People sometimes see a person working at art and say: “Oh…you are so talented. I can’t even draw a stick figure….or even a straight line for that matter.”

Well, for one: L.S. Lowry, the Mancunian English painter, hit on an idea and painted match-stick figures. One of those paintings sold recently for 602,400 (Pounds Sterling) at auction recently.

And I don’t know an architect who doesn’t use a straight edge if they want to see straight lines.

Do people listen to what they are saying? My guess is that they “think” they are being kind…or chatty. However what happens, in fact, is that they bring the process of art down to only one level. With one statement they negate all the hours and hard work people put into their aesthetic attentions.

I wonder if they realize that many artists (me included) have studied and worked at art longer than most of their doctors have worked in medicine.

The word “talent” is defined as: a person who possesses unusual innate ability in some field or activity. I think there are very few working artists that feel like they have “talent” that they can just fall back on when their art is not “working” in the studio.

I can believe that one could have a talent to:

A. dedicate a life to learning.
B. dedicate a life to learning through disappointment, inductive, and deductive reasonings.
C. understand Phi and other mathematical applications for a better composition.
D. understand composition as having real laws and they apply to 2D as well as 3D art….not just a chocolate box cover “feel good” approach for a sale.
E. dedicate a life to understanding materials (and long for some that aren’t made anymore).
F. understand that, should they decide to make art their career path, that the proportion of artists that are making money is even more disparaging than the screen actors guild.

“I put my heart and my soul into my work, and have lost my mind in the process.” Vincent van Gogh. (And by the way…thank you Kevn Lambson for creating such a brilliant book ARTSY QUIRKSY – Seeing Things Sideways, through Idear Studios…klambson@idearstudios.com for that referenced quote).

Understand that after an artist has died his work becomes distilled and hopefully all the bad stuff has been destroyed (unless it has been stolen out of your trash by “an adoring fan”….I am sad for Robert Rauschenberg having to sue over his trash…however free advertising in the form of editorial is not THAT bad). And then the art historians can get on with their gig of explaining art and its place in history.

"Art is never finished, only abandoned.” Leonardo da Vinci

I have a new “talent” for working on more than one painting at a time. I am finding it MOST useful in not getting frustrated or focusing too much on what is NOT working and just getting on to the next pastel with the hope that something will work.

“Creativity is allowing yourself to make mistakes. Art is knowing which ones to keep.” Thank you Scott Adams (American Cartoonist).

So do some artists have talent? I don’t think talent has ANYTHING directly to do with art. Having talent as part of the passion and dedication to the process of art…maybe.

And my new mantra (I would like to thank the great writer Steve Martin):

BE SO GOOD THEY CAN’T IGNORE YOU.

Branding as Acceptable Baggage

Branding is the baggage or preconception people bring when they meet you (that could be in person or in an article…or a blog)…sometimes the baggage is a Louis Vuitton or maybe a plastic grocery bag.

Branding sounds like such a harsh term when it comes to a creator of aesthetic appreciations.

However…one of the ways artists are branded is not being great business people and, if one plans on making a living from art, artists have got to make ART their business.

The business of art includes simple things like keeping a good inventory (you don’t want your heirs to have to pay for someone to catalogue what you left). And it will save time for your studio if you know where your different pieces of art are….as in shows entered, hanging in galleries, or just under the bed.

I have several friends that keep art under the bed. I wonder if there is more to this thought process than “it was a safe place to keep them flat”…..I digress……

The business of art includes more complicated things like marketing and advertising and WHAT SELLS!!!

Creating art itself has a lot of learning and education and it ALL takes time in development to become so WELL saturated that the good stuff becomes a “tool” that your brain just reaches for to move through the art process.

All of this acknowledged, by those of us that create aesthetically, I wonder why a majority of people still brand artists as lazy or as people that “only work when they are moved to do so”?

Art is hard work! In fact, there is a great book written by screen writer Steven Pressfield called THE WAR OF ART. Not a truer book, in my opinion, has been written about the dedication and focus it takes to create.

I have a theory that when a person is addressed by a mass communication medium, their branding is taken over by the public and voila, there is new baggage brought for the artist’s image to carry.

Recently, I have felt that my paintings are just starting to get to a more public level and it’s time I address my own branding. I had honestly thought that I was going to “let” the public hang a description on me, after enjoying my paintings of course, however I have just recently seen several interviews with artist and director Julian Schnabel.

I have never met Mr. Schnabel however I found it very interesting that when asked how people perceived him that he gave several different views of how people have responded to him and, I thought I heard in his voice, that NONE of those descriptions seemed to be telling the truth.

My guess is that he doesn’t have much intention for EVERYONE to know his inner thoughts however the falsehoods seemed to slightly bother him.

Folks used to say: “It doesn’t matter what they are saying about you as long as they spell your name right.” Well, I think with the advent of instant messaging that message is past.

Correct branding of an artist and their work is important for the artist to acknowledge so that the right emphasis for sales and sales pitches is aimed. No one has time to find out that if you live in an area that typically buys non-objective abstract art it’s a waste of the artist’s time and money to pitch absolute realism in still-lifes.

And one of my main concerns is to not be so narrowly branded that I can’t move on to the next exploration and keep evolving. If I am bored, the paintings are boring, and the buyers get bored and aren’t interested anymore in my art.

Today, I am trying the thought of my “branding” as “a pastel painter (that is the given) who paints fabulous in-situ animal paintings where birds and horses are featured and, many times, to the abstraction of the images.”

Okay…too long for a title however it IS place to start…..and as we all know: Life IS an adjustment.

Studio Time and What's REALLY Important

Want to make me mad with your being trite?

Tell me, “I have given myself permission to paint”.

Permission?? With REAL passion one doesn’t need permission. One grabs every opportunity and paints.

The point I am making is that if you REALLY want to do anything…you will. It’s what gets done that was important to you at the moment…really. And that’s fine and good.

However don’t whine about not doing other things. Learn to move those desired things up to the top to where you can get them accomplished.

In examining New Years resolutions I tried “somethings” new this year:

First, I thought about the idea of resolutions or changes back in the summer of 2007 and then I started to fine hone them over the year.

Second, I wrote them into a set of goals. There is a fine balancing act with goals. One needs to make them attainable without setting the bar too low. Also, once you set a goal (and it is MOST important to write them down and acknowledge them daily) you MUST let go of the outcome.

If one focus’ on the goal too much then the nerves of failure can easily become a self fulfilling prophecy.

Most importantly to me is that I needed to make the goals a gradual thing over the weeks. I didn’t just wake up on the 2nd of January and say: TAH DAH!!!

I put those goals down in increments that would help me incorporate them into a daily/weekly/monthly routine.

So far so good…….dang that feels good to say three weeks into the year.

Getting into the studio should be something that happens everyday that you plan. And I have just found out that it doesn’t need to be an 8 hour day to make a difference.

I have planned to paint 3 hours a day on 5 days a week. That still gives me time to do the marketing and also research reference materials for images…..it’s all about the business of art.

If you don’t treat your art as a professional why would anyone else treat your art any differently?

Eugene Delacroix:We work not only to produce but to give value to time.

Investing in Art now

As a full time painter (in pastels) I am always thinking of ways to get art out the door. And it seems to me that now is a great time to invest in smaller format original art.

At Daily Painters New Mexico (http://www.dailypaintersnewmexico.com/) there is a group of us that get, at least, a painting a week posted on our website. These paintings range from 4x6 to 10x10 inches and are less than $500 unframed.

All of us are in brick and morter galleries. Many of us have had museum shows. I am invited back to Cowgirl Up! at the Desert Caballeros Western Museum in Wickenburg (http://www.cowgirlupart.com/) the last weekend of March this year.

We paint a painting a week as part of the discipline and rhythm of the artistic life....a commitment to our art.

This also gives the investor another chance to purchase art from painters in their mid-career.

I am reminded of an investor (note I am not mentioning collectors here....many collectors just buy because they HAVE to have a certain painter or painting) who used to enjoy buying/speculating on artists BEFORE they were famous.

This guy had educated himself in art and had confidence in his taste and ability to find good artists and didn't really care if other folks approved of his selections.

When he asked his niece what she would like for her wedding present she pointed to one of the paintings. It turned out to be a very early Jamie Wyeth. Good choice all around.

Here's to good taste, moderation, and creative work all around, Nance