I am pleased to announce that “Hitching a Ride” has been accepted into the National Society of Artists 34th Annual Juried Show in October. To be exact the reception will be October 11th, 6 pm-8 pm on the 2nd floor of the historic Hutchings Sealy Bldg, 2328 Strand, Galveston, Texas 77550. I hope to see you there.
Now to the topic that I want to address in this blog: don’t short change yourself. I have a dear friend who is very creative. She is a potter, but she also loves to crochet & do needlepoint. She loves to work with her hands and is very good at it. Just like artists throughout the ages she doesn’t have a buyer for all of her works of art. She said to me the other day that she wasn’t going to crochet any more. “I don’t know where I would put it.” She doesn’t normally sell her crocheted and needle point pieces, but she does sell her pottery. I can give her suggestions about what to do with her piecework, but she can come up with her own answers.
What I want to say to her and all of us who have this need to express ourselves creatively, don’t short change yourself. You kill a bit of your spirit every time you ignore your need to create works of art. I was once asked to speak to a group of people about my journey in art. I was supposed to talk for about 20 min…that is a long time. They weren’t particularly interested in a hard core biography. They wanted to know why after a full career in Health Care did I want to devote so much to my art. As I prepared for this talk, I tried to come up with some lofty reason for my new career. I couldn’t come up with anything lofty, all that I could come up with was that ” I paint because I have to” It has been about 5 years since I did that talk and the deep dive into ” the WHY”. I still come up with nothing lofty, I paint because I have to. I know that if I didn’t paint I would start shriveling up. I know this sounds corny, but my painting feeds my soul.
I have sold a fair number of my paintings. But just like any artist, I have more paintings that I have to do something with:
sell in the future–those go into my Gallery
some go into the venues where my art is on display,
some go into my storeroom–to maybe work on in the future
some are given as gifts
occasionally I destroy pieces that even I can’t stand.
Managing my inventory is a big deal. You have to have an inventory that is just part of the business. Just like marketing your work, or doing the art work itself (the fun part), learning and working to improve your skills, and of course managing your inventory. All of these components are an important part of the whole picture. When I went to art school all those years ago, no-one talked about marketing and no-one talked about managing your inventory. Occasionally an artist will address the subject, but mostly no body wants to admit that they pieces that haven’t sold…Yet! You have to accept it as a part of the gift of “I have to paint”
Love you all
Susan
