Unless you are selling your artwork to an art museum of some kind, your artwork is probably destined for somebody’s living room.
And, apparenty, this is what people want in their living rooms:
- a couch, obviously
- TV, novels, video games, all preferably featuring variations on murder and war.
- Art that is the opposite of murder and war.
Over the years, I notice what I can and cannot get away with: Animals are ok. People with animal heads no. Cats yes; rats no. Dragons yes; snakes no. Blue yes; green no. Female body parts maybe; male body parts no. Skeletons maybe; wormy skeletons no. Guitar yes; the head is the guitar no. More than 2 arms maybe; more than one head no. Two eyes yes; three eyes no. (Do not mess with the head.) I happen to like things that are a bit twisted and alarming. Sigh.
People want their art to be maybe beautiful, maybe unique, amusing, perhaps a little thought-provoking. But nothing really unsettling, scary or revolting. I get that. I dont exactly want that stuff in my living room either.
But take a look at what else is in the living room. The TV, with its ongoing anxiety-producing murders, autopsies, end of the world horrors. The News itself. Mayhem somehow make a better story than chickadees. Novels on the coffee table feature murder torture and betrayal. Doesn't this all seem odd? Wouldn’t you think the Stephen King fans would be a little more tolerant of a nice little autopsy sculpture??
We seem to love to be faux-scared by novels, movies and video games, but we want our art to be safe… Is this because we think art is like furniture and should be comfortable to lie down
on? Art seems unsuitable for profound exploration. Well, profoundly funny, or profoundly beautiful. But not profoundly upsetting.
Or do we recognize the potential for art to get right under our skins, right up next to our so-vulnerable hearts, where all that mayhem would be too damaging. OK for all that pretend murder in the periphery, but way too dangerous up close where we really live.
We do need to heal ourselves with positive imagery. We are starved for it really. But it is dangerous to try to deny the other side. Because our lives contain both. Maybe we are working out all our negative stuff via movies and video games. Building up our tolerance to disaster. But saving art for something simpler, kinder, more healing, more loveable….
This is a little disappointing to me. I am a big fan of multiple heads, doll eyes, the twisted, the dark side. I was recently very intent on a potential Vomit Series. Featuring heads spewing out beautiful swirls of beads, rhinestones etc. Or maybe mappified swirls. Or tinnified. Themes of regret, purging. Things coming in, but going out the wrong way. I got sidetracked before I got very far. I am trying to make a living here, and I dont want to be making this room full of sculpture that I’ll have to maybe eventually take to the dump….Anyway, stay tuned. Its on the back burner for now but Im pretty attached to the idea still.
Comments
I love this thread. Of course, if you go ahead with the vomit series you'll be following in the footsteps of Hollywood cinema. So it won't be much different than what much of the silver screen delivers so that we may feel the reality of life. It's a trick employed to guarantee that viewers will be emotionally invested in the character and story. Stephen Sondheim said it best with his lyrics from his 1959 Broadway musical, Gypsy, "You gotta get a gimmick, if you wanna get ahead." CHECK OUT THE FULL LYRICS HERE
I've gotta cross reference this thread with what Nels wrote a few days ago in his thread about DeLand Fall Festival. I copied and pasted into Nels's thread what Geri said to you here about not seeing unique work anymore in shows. That's so often the comment I hear from collectors who've nearly quit searching the art fair circuit for work that speaks to them. HERE'S NELS'S THREAD ABOUT DELAND
You saw it on my website, with a group of other smaller travellers? Yes, it is available. Want me to send you a better pic? (I usually put the dog on a leash, with a doggie bag tied onto it)
Want to email me privately to continue this conversation??
kr@kathyross3d.com
I think your work is fabulous. Most of it is colorful, whimsical, fun and also well made. Your originality is a breath of fresh air. I used to go to art festivals all the time. I feel as if I have seen everything, originality is so rare. I understand the need to make things that will sell to masses but how can the masses stretch their minds if the artists are afraid to even show some of their work that is "a little out there?"
If you still have the girl reading a book with a dog on a leash, I am interested in adding her to my collection. Could you message me and let me know? Thanks so much.
One can't help but think of what happened when Juan Gris and Picasso and others began messing with perspectivity in developing Cubism: heads with multiple noses and eyes in the wrong place, disjointed arms and legs, etc. How might they have done at art fairs? Not well, I think!
I think multiple heads on animals is one thing -- its our own heads we're fussy about. And I do suspect this is a bit age-related.... Though I have been selling skulls to people over the age of 40.... Not wormy skulls though.
I can vouch for the "green" issue, too. Last year I did a series of monochrome abstracts. I did a gray group, a blue group, a sienna group, a beige group and a green group. Guess which didn't sell. The greens. I finally painted blue "skies" into them and away they went!
Kathy, your observations are so interesting. I owned a gallery in the Warehouse District in Raleigh. We had a number of artists with studios in the back and I had a curated show by outside artists monthly. We got a LOT of interest in the offbeat subject matter, but it didn't sell. We had an artist who did very edgy "50 Shades" sort of photography, which generated interest but few sales. So it gets 'em in the door.......NOW, that said, I can think of two artists I run into at national shows who both have rather macabre work, and it's all about WHICH SHOW. One of them was next to me at Artsplosure last year, with incredibly realistic wildlife, all of which had multiple eyes AND sometimes heads! He killed it (pun intended) with the young people and stayed open late each day selling prints and sometimes originals to the 20-something and young 30-somethings. Same goes for an artist I see all the time who does 3D "Day of the Dead" and other quirky work. He and I just won awards at a show in Savannah: him for his 3D back-lit skulls and me for my Lowcountry landscapes. (Go figure!) If you can find the shows with the younger demographic, you can test my theory. That's the tricky part, isn't it: finding the shows with our demographic!
yeah its a long list. But the list of what you can sell at a wholesale art fair is even shorter. Those people really can't afford to take any chances. I get that.... The retail art fairs give you a little more leeway...
I guess my point was: blood-red is on the list of "no" for art fair work; political themes are on the list of "no" . . .
The painting I'm using here as my profile pic is a 3' x 4' titled "Survivalist Surviving". It looks ghoulish, like a half-dead man in a field of blood. It always brings people into my tent, where they remark on it and often admire it, but NEVER even THINK of purchasing it. Doesn't go with the couch. So it "lives" in my dining room.
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