Blog Archives
Pearls from artists* # 715
*an ongoing series of quotations – mostly from artists, to artists – that offers wisdom, inspiration, and advice for the sometimes lonely road we are on
Whenever we must solve a big problem, such as the art/money challenge, it is worthwhile to look inward, to see where we may be complicit in perpetuating the problem. While artists are not always valued in our society, we also get what we settle for. Although we must eat and pay rent or mortgages like everyone else, non-artists often try to persuade us that we do not deserve to earn a living wage, because we enjoy our job. In the United States, we are often asked to work for free in a way that other professionals are not.
Consider trying to get an accountant to work ‘for the exposure.’ In many cases, artists go to college, even graduate school, to learn our profession. Many of us are still paying off student loans. We put in thousands of hours to develop our skills. We may win awards or grants that distinguish us from other artists. It is up to us to put a stop to the devaluation of our profession. Artists who agree to work for free, or for a pittance, are essentially strikebreakers on a picket line. As a group, we should be fighting in solidarity to raise standards of living and respect for our collective profession by refusing to work for less. When we agree to bad conditions, we devalue ourselves, and enable a dysfunctional system that perpetuates the exploitation of artists.
Kate Kretz in Art From Your Core: A Holistic Guide to Visual Voice
Comments are welcome!
Q: Does your work look different to you on days when you are sad, happy, etc.?
Barbara’s Studio
A: I am much more critical on days when I am sad so that the faults, imperfections, and things I wish I had done better stand out. Fortunately, all of my work is framed behind plexiglas so I can’t easily go back in to touch up perceived faults. I am reminded of the expression, “Always strive to improve, whenever possible. It is ALWAYS possible!” However, I’ve learned that re-working a painting is a bad idea. You are no longer deeply involved in making it and the zeitgeist has changed. The things you were concerned with are gone: some are forgotten, others are less urgent.
For most artists our work is autobiography. Art is personal. When I look at a completed pastel painting, I usually remember exactly what was happening in my life as I created it. Each piece is a snapshot – maybe a time capsule, if anyone could decode it – that reflects and records a particular moment. When I finally pronounce a piece finished and sign it, that’s it, THE END. It’s as good as I can make it at that point in time. I’ve incorporated everything I was thinking about, what I was reading, how I was feeling, what I valued, art exhibitions I visited, programs that I heard on the radio or watched on television, music that I listened to, what was going on in New York, in the country, and in the world.
It is still a mystery how this heady mix finds its way into the work. During the time that I spend on it, each particular painting teaches me everything it has to teach. A painting requires months of looking, reacting, correcting, searching, thinking, re-thinking, revising. Each choice is made for a reason and together these decisions dictate what the final piece looks like. On days when I’m sad I tend to forget that. On happier days I remember that the framed pastel paintings that you see have an inevitability to them. If all art is the result of one’s having gone through an experience to the end, as I believe it is, then the paintings could not, and should not, look any differently.
Comments are welcome.
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