Its Monday morning after a weekend art festival. It was not a particularly successful show. Every time I do one of the shows, I ask myself, "Why am I doing this again, I could be on my back porch drinking wine?" It is a valid question. One my very nice husband wants badly to ask me, but we have been married a long time. He is trying to help me do what I want.
I had a conversation with another artist this past weekend, we decided we were "gypsy gamblers". I think that may be an accurate statement. My family has always teased me about being part gypsy, as Parkers can pack an elephant into a tin can, really we can, its the gypsy gene. I also need to go places every now and again. I love to stay home, especially in the rain, but my Parker gene has to roam...thus the gypsy gene. The gambler part comes into play whenever you expose yourself to the public in an art festival venue. Its always a crap shoot.
This past weekend was discouraging. I never know what to exhibit. It is hard to create a clean display like the booth shot above and yet have pieces that the general public will purchase. Very frustrating. After a successful show, I think, "great, we got this now" and then one like this weekend and its back to the drawing board. I really wish I could just paint and someone else sell it. I would be happy with whatever price they wished to sell it for, if I did not have to think about selling it or fool with it. I am not good at staying with one subject matter for long. I tend to want to create anything that grabs my fleeting interest, which creates all kind of junky exhibits. Once I figure out how I want it to look, I am off on the next tangent. Its the challenge of figuring out the complexities of the work that interests me, not the continuing explorations of subject matter or deep inspiration. I therefore am a complete failure when judges ask my inspiration, my eyes tend to roll back in my head and my head spins around and I have to bite my lip in response. I kinda wand to scream, "gees I am 60 years old, I just wanted to see if I could paint that and make the vision in my head appear in front of me", I really need to come up with some better one liners. I am often my own worse enemy. I understand why older people are so blunt, they are simply tired of trying to fit someone elses mold. I do like to sell my work so I have an excuse to paint more.
Okay, I may be done with my after bum art festival rant. I did have one successful show. Sold all of my expressive faces but one. Kinda cool.
I am now trying to figure out if I should paint smaller units and consistent sizes, but I know I will get bored with them. I have already done the mass production stuff when I had a wholesale business. It was fun then, but not now. It did however, buy a lot of food for growing boys. I have no boys to feed now only dogs. Oh well, something will come along of interest, for now I have to clean and put all the mess back where it goes. I have to unload my gypsy van.
Thanks for the read. If you have any thoughts or suggestions, let me know. I actually appreciate the input. I tend to stay in my little world.