A Day in the Life of one Artist

In the past whenever an artist told me that he or she had swapped an artwork with another artist, he mentioned how uncertain it was that the other artist would agree. Even close friends approached the swap warily. While the two potential artists/swappers may be friends and always offered one another praise and encouragement, they may not have thought the other artist’s work was equivalent in quality to their own. For one artist to offer to swap, and for the second artist to decline would put a strain on their friendship.

My wife and I once owned an art supply store. An artist whose work we did admire only offered to trade an artwork for store credit after hearing from a third party that we like his work. He did not want to put himself in the embarrassing situation of having us decline. This was an artist with a firmly established reputation. He might have assumed that we would, or even should, be flattered that he offered work for store credit. Such is the fragility of artists’ egos.

Artists ought to exchange artwork. Artists are insiders in a business that outsiders are fairly ignorant of. A steady exchange of artwork among artists over the course their careers may very well net them the equivalent of savings or retirement account. Every artist makes more work than she can sell. Artists trading work could only benefit. Furthermore, they would not have to pay tax until they liquidated the artworks. An artist fortunate enough to have exchanged his or her artwork for another artist’s work may find he has few serious winners in his collection. A museum eager to obtain the artwork in an artist’s collection may be persuaded to accept works of the artist along with the desired work. That way an artist may be able to get her artworks into one more museum.

The key to such a program is the third party. An art community could designate someone to hold the offers to trade. He would notify artists of a match, when one occurred. Like a floor trader on an exchange, his “book” of offers to trade would be confidential. There might be a periodic meeting of “traders” from different art communities to facilitate trade over wider areas. The exchange does not occur as often as it should because, in my view, artists do not want to risk rejection from another artist. In addition, some artists have such a high opinion of their work that they would not think of trading at all.

Yesterday, May 26, I started another tulip painting based on a sketch I made last February.  I’m using the sketch in the upper left hand corner.  I’m thinking of the dot-to-dot puzzles I did when I was a child.  When I paint a subject like this, it is important to treat the silliness suitably seriously.  If the painting is not serious, the image looks too much like a joke.

As to the other stuff on the page, I’m always on the look out for painting ideas.

I finished the painting I started last weekend.  I made a few changes from the sketch below.  Early in the painting I eliminated the dark band at the top of the flower because that would have made the composition top heavy with out adding ballast at the bottom.  I could have done that, but that was not the solution I wanted for this particular painting.  I make up the colors as I go, but I have been trying to use lower chroma colors in these paintings I’ve done since the beginning of the year.  Grays and near grays - very low chroma colors - are interesting to use.  Low chroma colors look higher chroma when placed in conjunction with grays.  A gray area can appear to have a hue if placed in conjunction with another medium chroma color.  Unintentionally, a lot of violets and greens dominate these paintings. As this painting came to a close, I made the background a slightly yellow green, the near complement of the red violet circles in the flower.  I made the negative space  in the flower yellowish, the complement of the blue violet circles in the flower.

Tulip Variation #28, 40 x 30, acrylic on polyester canvas

I just photographed these last weekend.  These are two more paintings done since the first of the year.

Tulip Variation #26, 40 x 30, acrylic on polyester canvas

Tulip Variation #27, 40 x 30, acrylic on polyester canvas

Recently a friend and artist, Edna Casman, and I exchanged paintings.  I had e-mailed her an image of one my paintings to her on Valentine’s Day.  She responded by writing that maybe it was time she bought one of my paintings.  I proposed we exchange paintings as my wife, Cathy and I, had admired Edna’s painting for several years.  This was the swap.

Edna Casman, Ex Cathredra #11, 30 x 40, acrylic on canvas, 2005

Pictura Viscerum XXIII, 40 x 30, acrylic on polyester canvas, 1999

I particularly admire Edna’s command of color.  More of Edna’s work may be seen at www.casmanpaintings.com/ .

All of these paintings are 40 x 30, acrylic on polyester canvas.  Others can be seen in the Tulip Album.

Tulip Variation #18

Yesterday, May 17, I started a painting from the sketch shown below on the lower right. I had finished a painting last week with three tulips, but I was unsatisfied. I put the painting on my living room wall with six other recent paintings. This is a good test for the painting. It couldn’t hold its own against the other paintings. I considered entirely reworking it, but decided not to. Sometimes I feel motivated to continue on the same painting, but usually I’d rather start over. I started from the sketch, but two or three hour’s work into painting, I realized, as the brush left its trail of color, I had no interest in this painting. A physical disturbance had started in the vicinity where my stomach, liver, and pancreas conjoin. I am very familiar with this disturbance. If I don’t heed it, the consequences become more and more severe. There is no voice. Even at its loudest, it has no voice. It is the beginning of a visceral rebellion. The opening bars of part 18 of Stravinsky’s The Firebird describe this entity’s initial grumblings. This is the place, I think, where the pictures come from. In light of current knowledge, what unwinding stretch of DNA has loosed the enzymes that lead me to be physically upset with what I am doing? I stopped painting.

Am I through with this series? I try another one Thursday.