Seems like a theme of mine! Good bye my (fill in thew Blank) , Goodbye! While I say good ridden to “my pleaser”, it is more difficult to say Goodbye to my studio. While I do not paint there that often, because I have a studio in my house, I will miss it. It was a place to meet prospective buyers, people from venues interested in showing my work and have open studio. It made me feel like a real artist as opposed to a pretend one.
For the last five, okay 2 years I have literally dove into my art career. I have done everything in my missguided power to make money from my art. Missguided because I thought it better to make handmade products of my work to sell to the masses. The masses do not have the money or the interest in buying handmade products. They prefer to shop at Target and Ross. Buying 4 coasters for $5.00, makes way more sense than buying two coasters for $30.00. They have absolutely no interest in being part of the art world.
I do not blame them the art world sucks! Artist get paid crap, if their art goes up in value, they get no percentage of the increase. I wonder how much Edward Hopper got of a recent painting of his that sold. It sold for the highest recorded amount for a living artist. However did he get 3%, 2% or 5% of the profit. Hell no he got nothing. The art world is the last refuge of rouge capitalist screwing the creative, the feminine, the Venusian player in the world of creativity.
Actors and musicians now sometimes get a percentage of the influence they have on popular culture, however visual artists are still being screwed in the most insulting way. So stupidly I tried to get my art out to the working person, for a number of just as stupid reasons. Number 1, I wanted to share the rewards of recognizing an artist with a vision. When I become famous all the signed and hand made products would increase in value. 2) it was a way of increasing the value of an image so when I did sell the original it would be closer to the value of it’s worth. Since the art world pays artist crap and artists receive absolutely no percentage of any increase in value of their work, I thought I could help change this.
If Van Gogh were alive, he would not get a penny of the millions his paintings sell for today. Did I say the art world sucks, or did I say the art world truly sucks! In my opinion the art world is the biggest sucker of creative people ever! Not only do they pay artist shit but they charge people to see the art. I will never have my work in a museum that charges people to see my work. While I make no profit on the increased value of my work, they are going to charge people to see my work…..fuck you art world.
If I have to work for minimum wage, not have a studio….fine. But you mother fucking art world will never have my work in a fucking museum that charges. In fact please do not join any fucking snob ass museum. If you have to go to a pretentious museum do it the way I do. Go a bit later in the day and ask people coming out if you can have their tickets, buttons or stickers. It works if you tell them you are an artist and do not have the money but really want to see the art. In fact I think we the true art lovers should make a code. A truly cool code, that means you are part of the elite art lovers who want to free art from the “panties in a bunch art world”.
All this being said does not make me feel even slightly less crappy about having to give up my studio, but at least I do not care if I please any one. Did I mention I built the walls of my studio. Yep, I built the coolest walls, so I could hang the maximum amount of paintings. Also I built them so I did not damage the walls already there. Now I have to say good bye. Goodbye my studio, goodbye. Goodbye my studio, goodbye.