ART INTERVIEW

The Art Of Value & Grace

Recently Alan Bamberger posted a poignant question on Facebook that left me pondering possible answers for several days. If you aren't familiar with Alan, he is a renowned art critic, author, and art consultant who also presents some great information and questions on Facebook.

The question at hand is, " why do people want to buy your art and what do they get from it"?

A simple question, but one that I had not given a great deal of thought to previously, and most of my musing was and is about the creation of art and how to sell my art.

One of the first things most marketers do before a product is ever put out for consumers is to ask the central question, "who is the target market"? They look for levels of education, income, geographic location, sexual orientation, gender, age, race, and many more factors. Compiling this data and using newer sophisticated neural marketing techniques they come up with a specific group of people that will purchase a certain product. There is a great deal of money, energy, and time invested in knowing who will buy a specific product. The marketers and media experts know why someone will buy and how they will feel when they buy it. All of this a byproduct from the free enterprise system that generally uses the inducement of fear as a motivating factor to get you purchase a product.

Is this ever done with art? I haven't encountered any of the above mentioned marketing techniques to sell art.

Artist are generally more concerned with creating art than with the sale of art. Creating art is realy a full time job in and of itself. Of course artist have to eat, buy paint, canvas, pay mortgages, and attend to the general financial responsibilities that most people do. There are the "hired guns" in the art world, the graphic artist, illustrators, muralist, and so fourth that create art on demand and get paid a certain fee for creating art, and are generally guided by someone else vision. Those of who are not "hired guns" and create art purely from our hearts, souls, and gelatinous gray matter, are compelled to create, and desire to have someone out there on this blue globe acquire our work in exchange for greenbacks.

Most of the time fine artist are creating from an inner calling, a need to share their humanity, spirit, and experiences, of which have to find and avenue in some physical medium like painting, sculpture, film, poetry, photography, novels, and many other mediums. As an artist it often feels like a strange compulsion of some silent, yet loud invisible source telling us what we must do and when to do it. Some say it is a curse to be artist because often creating art comes before good sense, though as we age this compulsive state of being generally becomes more rounded and better balanced.

What most of us want as artist is to have someone else sell and market our work so that we can focus on creating art.

Do we know why people buy our art?

Possible answers.

1) Acquiring art for investment, sort of like playing the stock market, buy low, sell high.

2) Desiring to impress other people and have them believe you are a cultured sort of person.

3) Artist often buy other artist works because they like to support their fellow comrades.

4) A love of human expression through the medium of art.

5) Must have something on the wall above the couch.

The answers are as many as there are stars in the galaxies, and I have yet to come up with any definitive answers, though all this musing has gotten me to contemplate what my target market might look like.

First, they must have disposable income.

Second, they probably have a general interest in modern art.

Third, more than often they know me and like me.

Fourth, they might believe that someday my art will be worth more than they paid for it.

Quite honestly, for all the musing I've done on the questions of selling I have very few answers, and hope that a good art marketing person will manifest in my life. Most of the art I have sold has been from art shows, friends, and a few on line sales, and the whys of their purchases remains a bit of a mystery to me.

I would love to hear from anyone reading this article as to what they think about the reason is that people buy art and what they get from purchasing it.

Saying For The Day: Create from you heart, be true to yourself, and embrace joy.

The Sweet Spot

There is a place on the tightrope of bliss that allows for infinite, perfect expression of creativity. It's always a balancing act when painting to apply the needed intellect, and to simply be a conduit of creativity. Also, there is a "sweet spot" when the viscosity of the paint on the canvas is just right and your brush flows like a gentle breeze on a full moon night.

Let's be a bit more specific here and quit talking all the "new age" sort of lingo.

The heart of the matter is having the knowledge of color, composition, paint application, or any medium you may work in, good conceptual skills, and being able to combine that with ability to let go of all your preconceptions as to how the painting should evolve and what the final result will be.

Often, after having done a lot of preliminary sketches, making small mock ups, and deciding the pallet to be used, I tend to have what feels like quite an investment in the piece at hand, and that it should turn out as I have chosen. This investment of ego can create a "stiff painting", one that is technically great, but will not speak to the viewer.

The nature of evolution is to seek that which is unknown, thus producing something dissimilar to the previous model in order to create something great. This seems to apply to art as well.

If you are determined to have a work of art turn out exactly as you have planned it, whether in the minds eye or on paper, more than often you will end up with a well orchestrated piece of art with a lack of that something special we'll call "heart connection"

What is "heart connection"?

It is the ability to create a work of art for the viewer that will resonate with peoples hearts. They feel what you wanted to communicate, they can associate with your work of art because it has more than just good technical and conceptual skills. It has that something extra special that words cannot define.

The reason that words are incapable of defining "it" is because the person who created the art went beyond the dimensions of intellectual skills and got in the rhythm with the force of life. The invisible energy that gives us all life, movement, animates us.

Ability to connect with that sweet spot when you paint gives an added dimension to your art work. When you are in the zone of true creativity balanced between the mind and the invisible energy of life, you know you have hit the "sweet spot".

Saying For The Day: Let go, be open to the unexpected..........

Creating Time

Between everyday responsibilities; the have to, must do, and need to get done, there is the "creative time" that eludes many people. In order to find the time to make art I must intentionally create time to pursue my artistic passions. In doing so, sometimes I have to rearrange all those have to get done items of everyday responsibilities.

A lot of people ask me how I find the time to do everything I do and they think I have a life unfettered by the realities of responsibilities. I run an architectural business, make short films, paint, and am also writing a book. I'm not a super human, nor do I have any more time than anyone else, I mean the day is only twenty four hours long, give or take a few minutes of planetary fluctuation.

One of the largest consumers of time is the ole television, and the social site media perusing on the internet, of which I'm also guilty of. I don't watch television per say, I'll watch a movie on Hulu on the internet, and yes I do my fair share of social media as well.

I always ask myself, "is this how I want to be spending my time?" Asking this question helps to keep me conscious about how I spend my time, and if I would really rather be doing something else, whether relaxing in a different way or being productive with something. I know I can sit and watch a movie for two hours and feel like ten minutes has passed by. If I use those two hours to write, do art, or give some love to my fiancee, then more than often I feel a sense of fulfillment and that I am in the flow of life.

So, my secret to living is very simple. Turn off the T.V. and the social media, and listen to what your spirit, body, and mind want to do. We all like to feel a sense of accomplishment. We know when we are in the flow of life, and resonating with the energy of life. Life is river, you can hold on to the rocks on the shore and fear the river, or you can swim with the current and enjoy the ride.

Saying for the day: Be true yourself, know yourself, know your passion.

Collaboration With Artist

Moving Mayhem - Studio 4

Working in your studio day after day, isolated from other artist is one way to produce art work, and another method is to get out of the studio, meet other artist, work on projects together, exchange concepts, and have some commentary on each others art work.

Recently I opted to move my art studio at my house to an art space with about thirty other working artist. I hadn't worked in an environment like this since my days at the university, and always thought the best creative condition for me was to work alone. After moving all the stuff and setting up the art space in a small 300 sq. ft. walled space, I started to meet other artist, have conversations, invite guest over to view my art work, and found that I loved the energetic buzz of working around so many creative minded people.

Seeing so many artistic people, styles, and concepts on a daily basis affords the opportunity to expand beyond reading and viewing art work in books, which can be quite illuminating, but does not posses the power of real human interaction which is truly inspiring.

I consider this move on the best I have made and would suggest to any artistically inclined person to find interaction with other artist on a daily basis.

Also, I have recently started a collaborative project with a good friend of mine who is a renowned photographer. He takes the photos and processes them, then I add my painting to the photo work. Sometimes even after I paint he adds more photographs to the art work. Before starting a piece we discuss the concept, exchange ideas about the general direction we feel the piece can take, and then give each other complete freedom to pursue our passion.

This has been a great exercise in letting go of ego, and also I learned that I actually had some fear around working on someones art work, in that I might not be accepted - like, what if they don't like what I did to the art work, or what if I mess it up? After letting go of these fears, and removing the seriousness from this collaboration, we have created some great art work and learned a lot about ourselves in the process.

Saying For The Day: Share your creative spirit with others..........

FINDING BALANCE IN ART

Sometimes it is a direct conscious effort in choosing pallets, approach, style, and the concept for art work, and at other times it seems that if you let the subconscious energies operate all on it's own the results are far more vibrant, alive, conveying to the viewer a sense of honesty, truth, and vibrancy that may not happen when subject matter and aesthetics are overly intellectualized. I was thinking about this in relationship to meditation and the conscious choice to elevate your energetic state.

Some say that by simply being present, aware of your thoughts and actions that you are meditating, and advancing energetically, while others say that you must consciously choose to participate in a ritualized form of meditation, such as doing it for 30 minutes or more every day while sitting in a posture that allows energy to flow easily through the chakras.

In choosing to do a ritualized activity, I ask, is that always the route to take in order to achieve the greatest effect and does it allow for spontaneous experience, such as when you paint without a great deal of forethought as to concept and aesthetics.

It seems to be a hit and miss sort of situation when simply approaching a canvas and letting out whatever will come forth, whereas a strongly preconceived notion will be well directed, but may also be a stifling approach that doesn't allow for spontaneous events, so the painting will look stiff and un-energetic.

I am still finding the balance between allowing for energetic spontaneous occurrence, and having a well thought out map of where I'm going conceptually and aesthetically.

Saying For The Day; Listen to your internal dialogue and what your body is telling you.