Why make art and what makes you think you can make art for a living? Get a real job!! What do you do all day? Who are you to think that people will want to look at your art, let alone want to own it and hang it in their home? These are some of the questions that can plague an artist, some of them stem from our own minds and some of them from our own experience of others. It is no easy feat to be an artist. Most of us do not do it for the money, ( maybe the hope of money) , the lucky few that can make a living on their artwork alone are minimal.
I cannot speak for other artists but only for myself. The only way I can describe making art is that it is my calling. A very deep desire that I have had since I was at secondary school and it has never went away. I cannot go very long with out at least making some mark on a piece of paper. I want to give people an experience , an infusion of colour, beauty and hope and I do this best by making art. It has been a very long road to get to this place. I feel I have a small following now, who love my work but it has not always been that way. Now I realise that my work is not to eveyone‘s taste and that is fine by me but building up confidence as an artist takes time and we need a lot of encouraging moments to cling on to when things don’t seem to be going our way. I shall tell you a true story.
I once gifted someone a painting. I liked this painting that I had done. I had no money to pay someone so I gave them a painting. It was an oil portrait. I loved this painting. (At the time it had a dark background.) As a younger artist I never had any money to frame my paintings so I would go to charity shops to find frames. One day I went to a charity shop and found the painting that I had gifted. It was for sale for £2.50. So I bought my own painting back. The man at the counter remarked that he thought the lady in the painting looked “Nay happy”.
It was a huge learning curve for me. I realised that not everyone sees the value that you see in your work and never give your work away for free. If people love your work , they will pay for it. I don’t tell this story to shame the person. I am sure it was given to the charity shop with an honest heart. Anyway for 6 years I carried that painting with me. I really liked it and always wondered what to do with it. So, I gilded rose gold and gold leaf onto the painting to make it look more like an icon. I put it in an exhibition and it sold for a considerable amount more than £2.50. So you see, there is faith in making art. You never know if anyone will like it, if it will ever be purchased, will sit in your house for a life time, will someone see the value that you see, will they connect with the work, will it leave a mark on their life, is it worth risking thousands of pounds to get them framed, will you ever make your money back , will you ever make a profit, is it worth all the effort?
I believe so.
Bringing hope one painting at a time.
Here is the painting called “Arranging life’s flowers” , oil on canvas board with rosegold and gold leaf.
My upcoming exhibition will be on November the 7th 2020 at
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