Am I a big phony?

View of copy -- halfway done.




What I wrote last time seemed like a big lie after I thought about it. Not influenced by sales? I have been known to feel compelled to go out to a site and repaint a scene after a painting sells. And that actually is not so much about thinking that the view is 'lucrative' but actually it's more about a sense of loss. I feel that it is missing and I have to go out to the site and do it again.

But even worse, last week I had 2 parties interested in the same painting (which actually was not for sale in the first place and may be why they wanted it.) (But I wanted it.) I got myself in a bad position of offering it to both of them. (I can't say "no".) I figured I could make a glicee but that didn't seem as good as having the painting. And I haven't crossed the glicee line yet.

So I sat down and repainted it. I copied it exactly. My guideline was that it had to look the same or better. I didn't have some of the same pigments that were used in 2000. It was a most interesting exercise. it turned out well. I honestly didn't think I could do it. Now it occurs to me I could probably make enlargements of small paintings. It took just about as long as the first version took. Doing it gave me some new ideas. I think the curiosity of the copy, the sheer Ripley's believe-it-or-not quality of it, will actually increase the value of the original. And it's a case of the collectors driving the creation or art.

I just visited a website by another artist I know who shall remain nameless. One of his nav bars is 'customer comments'.
Again, a case of a customer-driven approach. There is something quite odd here. Do people really buy art because others are buying it? Perhaps. We all know the frenzy that happens when there are some 'sold' pieces in a show.

So many of the artists I know are so very, very sales-oriented that I often feel they should spend more time on making the actual artwork. Shouldn't there be something almost sacred about the creation of art? I know an artist who brags about making 10 minute paintings. I suppose this is to make himself seem like a great MASTER who has lived in a cave for 40 years, but if everything is done in 10 minutes, there can't be much risk or exploration going on. Occasionally I would think one must put some real time in to refresh one's muse. A painter I knew said it was every 12th painting that turned out. I tend to just not give up on them...I can work on them for years.

Artists have websites because people keep telling us that we need to have them to sell off the web. I've been on the web for, well, since it started and have yet to sell anything off the web (unless you count my book 'Rabbit Language or 'are you going to eat that" which is selling quite well and also available on amazon). I did know someone who sold some work on paper on eBay that when sold, she just rolled up and put in a tube. I tried to eBay a few paintings that I was afraid that I would paint over. They didn't sell but I ended up buying other things while I was on eBay. I get weekly scam email from some other continent asking us to sell work but it seems like a money laundering scheme.