good art?
- art
- May 19, 2012
- 0 Comments
this is my response to art into life’s question “is it good art” you can find the original post here.
i was truly honored that my work was chosen to create such a chaos amongst the writer’s thought process….. here is what i am thinking…
as far as i can tell you actually seem to appreciate my art and your post really is not asking if my work itself is good or bad, but perhaps how work like mine may be presented or sold, so this is not a response in any manner as to say “shame on you, my art is good”. i’ll leave that to the eye of others. to be honest, i actually don’t know if it is really good art, but i do tend to be on the “good” side of things – just to get that out in the open.
i honestly agree with many of the points in your post and realize that you probably get opinions from all sides. perhaps my background can shed a little light on your argument made for there being Art with a capital A versus just art that i assume you are meaning is not so good. i certainly don’t take my art, or myself for that matter, to be ground breaking in any manner. i am not changing the world or curing anyone of disease. i wish my work had a greater impact on things more important, but i do my best to put a smile on someone’s face and a sense of peace and completeness to the final resting place of the work itself. i never took formal art training until my college years, but after one painting class i was hooked. i am not self taught, but i did not major in art or painting for that matter. the first painting i ever sold was painted in the laundry room of my grandmother’s condo while i was looking for a job in the big city. my studio is still a two car garage, but it is my life’s work. it is not just a job, it is who i am. it is all consuming.
there is an internal struggle with my work not being in a “gallery” in soho or michigan avenue. but i’ll be honest – other than the fact that i could say i made it all the way there, i’m not sure i want it in one of those galleries. yes, there is some outstanding, “i wish i would have thought of that” art residing there. unfortunately there is just as much “what the heck is that” produced as well . i have learned from experience as i know most adults have, that talent will only get you so far. it will certainly get the paint on the canvas, but it will not get the canvas in a gallery, or in a well to do home. it has been proven time and again in both residences i visit and clients i work for that money can not and will not buy taste. the opposite in fact more often than not is true. currently i have prints hanging in habitat for humanity homes and an original piece displayed next to a fiberglass captain morgan statue in a millionaire’s bachelor pad. which is better art? to be collected or accepted in many art circles requires a bit of luck, some marketing genius, and a lot more work than it actually takes to paint the darn thing. trust me – i’m working on the marketing genius portion of that combination. a few years ago i was told by a gallery owner i respected to go and get my masters in painting before trying to get my work into galleries. a year later after seeing my work sell elsewhere locally i was asked to do a show for her. funny, she didn’t address me as dr. youngstrom on the call.
i work by myself. if you want to talk to my marketing department, you talk to me. you want accounting, hold the line, i’ll be right there. so to offer my work at places like joss and main and other small sales shops in a reproduction version is a blessing for me and those i am painting for. it gets my name in blogs and out and about so that i can sell more original works of art. the more prints i sell, the more paint i can buy. why shouldn’t my pieces be accessible to people like my neighbors who help watch my children when i’m out peddling my work. i don’t want to have to go off to a pretend world i don’t live in to sell the work i create – it’s just paint. heck, i’ll let everyone know that most of it comes from the mistakes made when paint is mixed wrong in the big box home paint departments. yes, i use some cool and expensive stuff no one else does, but i’m just a normal guy using the talents god gave me. so i want my work to represent that. i have paint that costs over $100 a gallon, do i advertise that on the side of the canvas? if i put a price tag of $5,000 on it, instead of $500 does it make it any better?
i’m proud to be an artist for someone who is not a collector and who wants a piece to go over their non-desrcript furniture. i’ll take the title of artist for the working class – no problem there. my work echo’s who i am. and i hope it continues to be, no matter what happens next. of course i have dreams of being the next big thing. it often keeps me up at night.
please be assured, i am not bashing your points at all. it’s funny how the same thoughts regularly play good cop/bad cop with me. i am currently attempting to get rid of everything i have painted in the past two years by selling it for next to nothing, just so i can paint new things and not repeat what i see in my own studio on a daily basis. i am by no means trying to sell out and see my same images conquer the globe. i am always pushing for something new.
finally, you are correct – the painting and the final result should be above it all – and trust me, i struggle with those thoughts on a daily basis. settling for the alternative is not an option. so i’m actually giving you kudos for not buying the print and holding out against cb2 – although you might want to read the description. the work at cb2 is all original, i painted 200 or the darn things. the letters L O & E are all dimensional. i sanded 600 of them by hand. glued everyone one of them on myself. the paint is tinted with metal and is rusted by a hand application, every one is signed and numbered and most importantly, the paint IS dimensional. so you might want to take a second look. they are selling fast at $349.00 a piece.
so the debate on how art touches and reaches us will rage on. and as my facebook friend who i should have cheated off of more in junior high history put it “in the box academic mentality confines art to art dealers, representatives, collectors and museums…but times change and so has the mediums and methods by which art is not only defined but shared and appreciated.” guess that’s why i was a mediocre student. so keep looking for my art in new venues, who knows where it will be next. if however you see it at walmart; well, then we may have to talk!
run the race.