What I came into the thread to say. And since I like Cezanne - cool.
Okay - so Cezanne was known for coming at his “own artistic voice” much later than is normal for an artist, and only through the product of years of craft and toil - I have heard it described as emerging through the force of his will.
You paint in a “kinda Cezanne-y” way and yet aspire to “be in the groove” - which seems to be the opposite of how Cezanne came at it…??
(just thinkin’ out loud here…)
Nope.
A very mediocre secretary.
I think that Cezann-y description applies to that painting of apples, but it’s not true of most of my work. I just didn’t post very many images.
Good question re: coming to my own voice, I’ll give that some thought…
I like your art! Would love to see more.
Do you still love making art the way you did before it was your paying job? I hear people say all the time that they don’t want to turn their hobby into a job as they will quit loving it. I don’t quite get that–I do what I love for a job, and it doesn’t make me not love it, but maybe it is different for something like this.
Also, how cool is it to tell people what you do for a living? You are a pretty rare bird. 
Ooh! I like the feel of your art. You have a touch with colour and light. My mom would have bought some, I’m sure.
Did art school teach you about the business of being an artist?
Do you have a website and/or sell on the internet?
Are you still teaching art to senior citizens on the side? Whether you are or not, how would you say that experience has affected your own work?
Okay, in re: craft / toil vs. inspiration… I saw this on the wall in an art room & think it’s a great description of the learning process for art (and probably lots of other things, too). Here are the phases:
Unconscious Incompetence
Conscious Incompetence
Conscious Competence
Unconscious Competence
What’s interesting is that with growth, you learn to recognize more incompetence. Even though you’ve also achieved some competence! Like for example, the past two summers I’ve studied with Shane Wolf who is currently tearing them up in Paris (he’s from Cincinnati and returns there to teach & see family). He’s been studying intensely for about seven years, 24/7, and he knows his stuff. So a portrait class with him is completely different from other classes I’ve taken. And the thing is, Shane’s still studying, too. He mentioned a class that he took recently.
So – yeah, I’m looking for ways to mine a vein of unconscious competence and have the work flow. There are some specific ideas I’m exploring, on purpose, that push my sense of flow, of unconscious competence - I want to give the viewer MY experience. But, at the same time, I’m also working on conscious issues. I think the two support each other, sort of a yin/yang.
Thanks Brynda! I’ll post some soon 
Making art is definitely different for me now that it’s my profession. I love it in a different way - I’m chasing larger goals, and always in pursuit of them, and never satisfied. So yeah, it’s not “personal” in the way it was before. For me, that’s liberating. I don’t have time to “prove myself” with any particular piece, I have to keep moving. And not bothering with self-redemption is actually a relief 
Telling people what I do for a living has as many minuses as pluses, to tell you the truth - people don’t understand the art world, by and large. So they’re defensive. I’m assumed to be much more or much less than I am.
The BEST part, really, is when I’m doing a quick portrait at a festival and I manage to wow someone. That happened the other day, at the mall – this dad was really skeptical, he assumed I had to be a joke, some kind of rip-off. I drew his infant son and REALLY nailed it. My portraits are almost always very good, but they’re not always exceptional - this one was. Dad teared up. Guy in a Harley t-shirt got choked up in the mall. TOTALLY made my day
Thank you Sunspace!
Art school assumes (or at least it did when I was a student, in the mid-80’s) that the Art World consists entirely of New York/Paris/Chicago/LA and nothing else. Their goal (during my tenure) was to teach students to be the Next Big Thing in elite museum/collector circles in those cities.
In my experience, people of all means in all cities want art. That I’ve learned to reach them is a result of other work experience, not art school.
It may be different there, nowadays (or at different schools). I couldn’t say.
I do have a website, I don’t have it set up to process orders. I need to do that this year. :):smack:
I’m not teaching seniors (or anyone else) right now. I wouldn’t say it was a positive thing, for me. They were far too entrenched in the Thomas Kinkade school of thinking for me to reach them. At least, the ones I happened to meet were. It made me think I was wasting my time.
Last year I drew a bunch of senior citizens, at a retirement home. Spent the whole day there. THAT was fascinating and rewarding, and they liked their drawings a lot.
One thing that blew my mind was, I met someone I simply could not draw. I’ve draw wigglers and happy kids and crying kids and pretty much every kind of person you can imagine. Rarely have I failed – this one lady was a fail. She had Alzheimer’s. She told me the exact same little amusing anecdote 11 times in a row, and laughed each time, as though she’d just heard the joke. I couldn’t figure out who she was – she’d forgotten. COULD NOT draw her.
That was fascinating.
More re: people’s assumptions…
Last Christmas I was working a holiday art fair at an art center, doing quick portraits. The fair was to the public, but catered toward the subset of the public that knew about (and would choose to go to) an art center.
When I’m drawing portraits I set up my area so that people can easily watch me work. They enjoy it, and I don’t mind - it’s not distracting most of the time, and I like sharing my process. I don’t try to use a tip jar or anything, I want people to just enjoy seeing the portraits happen.
At this event I wasn’t busy the whole time, so I’m sitting there twiddling my charcoal when a guy and his wife walk up - I kind of gestured to see if he wanted to sit and be drawn and instead of taking my chair he says “Well draw something.”
“I’m waiting for a customer; I don’t work for free” I replied.
He scoffed and snarled “REAL artists don’t work for money.”
“Yeah, tell that to my mortgage lender” I replied.
No, sorry I was unclear. What I meant was have you ever displayed your art in a restaurant or flower shop or something on a consignment basis.
We are in the finishing stages of decorating at our deli and several people have suggested contacting local artists to display their art on a consignment basis. This gives them exposure and decorates our walls for free.
I need to decide if this is the way we want to go or not.
Oh – I haven’t done that, but I know people who have and sometimes it turns out really well.
You might want to look for people whose work is displayed under glass, like watercolors or pastels, as opposed to oil or acrylic paintings. It’s easier to clean the public’s fingerprints and spilled soda pop off of glass than off the surface of a painting.
Good luck!
How does a talented new artist (that’s “new,” not “young”) get his work shown in galleries? It seems that gallery owners only want to see a bio, listing previous shows and awards. They’re very reluctant to take a chance on a new artist, regardless of the merits of his work.
Here’s what I would do – look up some local artists & see what their biographies show online. And then repeat their pasts. Go enter the contests they entered, or look for small shows that they did.
Also join local artist associations and enter those group shows (if you don’t know of any, you can find them on other artists’ biographies).
Enter your state fair.
Let go of the idea of making money, for the most part. We tend to think that money is given as a reward for merit, but that’s not necessarily true. People spend money on things that benefit THEM, not things they want to reward.
Making art is a way of serving yourself and/or your Higher Power and/or whatever philosophical system you jibe to. SELLING art is about serving the purchaser.
Just to clarify – are you making your living doing this, or do you need a day job to support your art addiction?
I have one suggestion to make, based on several years working at the National Gallery of Art. When you start getting into serious money (thousands of dollars or more per piece), then the rationale for the art becomes at least as important as the art itself. So, along with every composition you need also to compose the rationale, which you then use to sell it to more upscale clients. “It’s pretty” is enough to sell something to me, but not to the “patron” types.
Right - that’s why I’m not aiming for the “patron” types. It’s my observation that the more artwork one makes, the better it becomes. I’d rather spend my time making and selling work to people like myself, and just avoid the other circles.
I am making my living as an artist. I may need some kind of supplemental work at some point(s), depending on which house system fails next.
I have a question for the posters here: I’m really surprised that most of these questions have involved money - why is that?
I haven’t claimed to be THE artist, or the BEST artist, or anything like that. Just a working stiff who is in a particular field of work. I thought it was different enough that people might have questions. And I figured I’d learn something by answering them.
The money-as-merit thing becomes somewhat immaterial when one looks around and sees a hack (like Nancy Noel for instance) whose work is wretched and who is making plenty of money.
I was a part-time, fit-art-in-when-I-can artist for years & years. And my work was pretty much stuck & stagnant. About 10 years ago I found that I could do quick portraits and serve people by creating something that was relevant to them, and make money at it. So I started earning a living. And selling some fine art. And doing some commissions. And then I got pregnant w/twins and had to put everything on hold for a long, long time. But now they’re older, I’m not exhausted, and I’m back at work. And I don’t work-to-live, I live to work; if I have to choose between being an artist and being poor, I’ll take poor. My kids aren’t going to Disney this year (unless their father takes them; he does have the means). I hope that one of these days I’ll earn enough to do that kind of thing, but I don’t have any guarantees. And I don’t care. I’m in my late 40’s, I’ve got maybe 20 years of good working life left and I’ll be damned if I’m going to waste it doing anything else as my primary goal.
Since you’re in Madison, Jim, I’ll tell you that when I lived there I was in Grace Chosy’s gallery. It was a long, long time ago, and I didn’t sell anything – and I was devastated! Meh, since then I’ve learned a lot about what makes art good and what makes it salable.