Total Art Soul - for artists

Whenever I say that art should not be JUST about selling, I am usually met with a mixed bunch of responses.  Thankfully some of you still think that it's about passion, freedom of expression and doing what you love in life.  Unfortunately, I am also usually met with a barrage of 'you give me shelter and pay my bills and I will stop trying to sell my art' and 'go preach to someone else'.  I am quite shocked at such hositility considering that I spend my entire life trying to help/nurture other artists. Oh, and I'm not writing this to get a bunch of gratitude.  I would just love to hear some opinions.

I feel I have to explain myself.  We set this site up for artists to have a haven, somewhere they can feel inspired and feel that their creativity is nurtured.  THAT'S THE MAIN OBJECTIVE.  Secondary to that, we feel that having recommendations is the best form of advertising and is why we promote the artists rather than them promoting themselves.  Self promotion is hard to swallow for most people and can turn off any potential buyer.  Equally, having a site that's full of links to other websites is uninteresting and is why we don't allow people to JUST post their links.  I feel I have to say JUST in capitals because so often this is misunderstood.  We have nothing against people adding their links to interesting posts/blogs.

What I don't understand, please help me out, is why some people feel that we're doing a bad thing here.   Is it wrong to want to nurture creativity? Is it wrong to give exposure to others? What could be easier, people give us interesting content on our site and we do all the exposing for you! All for free.  You talk passionately about what you love to do and people will enthuse with you.  You will hook people in with your enthusiasm and knowledge, not with  spam.

Another vitally important factor that people forget is that your online reputation is vital. Post you've made 5 years ago are still there in cyber space somewhere and will come back and bite you on the bum.  Sending people spam and aggressive or rude messages is not very professional and will not create a good impression.  I will never buy from you and I too am a potential customer.

I strongly feel that selling anywhere, online or on the high street, is about building/forging relationships.  Most of my paintings (except 2) have been sold to people who know me personally or have had some personal contact with me.  I have been doing this for 9 years and it is still so.  This is why I feel strongly that 'in your face' marketing does not work and is why I have adopted this way of operating this site.  Some of the members here have purchased from other members (including myself) and just proves this point.  Forging relationships works, building trust works, being recommended works.

Meanwhile we can hopefully all enjoy a little commercial free haven where selling is not THE most important factor, be inspired and impart our knowledge.  Who knows where that could lead!

Comment (24)

I watched a wonderful program on Matisse last night.  It made me realise that my new series 'stripped naked' was indeed a good idea.  Matisse started out doing relatively constrained and traditional works, paintings that fitted in to what was expected of him at that time.  It wasn't until he had bowel cancer that he started to feel free and started to do the art that was a true expression of himself.

I have felt constrained, conditioned and shackled by what has been expected of me.  People tell you what they want you to paint, parents want to be proud of you, people want to see what they expect to see, this is why people like Matisse were so important because they broke away from all of that.

The series I am working on tries to break away a little bit, but I still feel I'm not going far enough with it, I'm not being brave enough.  I feel like I'm in a straight jacket, I need to break free, I need to find what is deep inside and learn to express it.  I feel frustrated and keep going back to doing what is expected, such is the force of conditioning.

Matisse stripped his work naked. He took away more and more elements, he let color speak for itself, the emotion it creates was enough.  He put colors where most artists would not.  He played with shapes rather than get bogged down with details.

In this series, I am exploring taking elements out, stripping my work naked.  Currently I am taking the color out, letting the shapes do the talking but I need to go much further, much further...

Orchid 1 - oil on canvas

Orchid 2 - oil on canvas

Orchid 3 - oil on canvas

Comment (20)

I saw this idea some time ago and I thought what a lovely gift it was.  I would be thrilled if someone gave me something like this. It's inexpensive and the possibilities are endless.  You really can play around with this.  This particular one is for scones but I saw one for a mixed vegetable soup which contained all kinds of dried ingredients, like split peas, red lentils, vermicelli, dried onions etc. all layered up. It looked great.

This particular tutorial comes courtesy of Whimsey Love

Apricot Scone Mix

INGREDIENTS:

-2 cups flour

-1/2 cup vanilla or normal sugar

-1/4 cup non-fat dry milk powder

-2 tsp baking powder

-1 tsp dried lemon peel

-1/4 tsp salt

-1/3 cup shortening/butter/palm oil (shortening is basically hydrogenated fat)

-1 cup dried apricots

INSTRUCTIONS:

Mix altogether and place in the jar! Et voila!

You can attach a circle piece of vintage fabric to the top of my jar with a rubber band. Then, to hide the band, loop a piece of twine a few times around the top. Print out the instructions for baking onto a gift tag. Attach it to the jar & you're done! It's ready for keeping OR gifting!

Now who could not be happy with a delightful gift like this? :-)  If you come up with other ideas for these jars, please share them. I'd love to make loads of these!

For Tutorials on how to market yourself online, go here.

Comment (7)