the business of art | Cabin Art

Random Roundup

We got rain and snow and clear bright days.
Three Rivers, as it looks in my neighborhood.
I painted 3 poppies, thinking they would be quick and easy. Fall down laughing. I have had to reshape and reshape and relayer and wait and relayer yet again and on and on and on. . . this is just one of the three poppies that will not cooperate.
I started painting a bear. During our Bear Autumn of 2015, I got a few photos. This is probably the dude who tore battens off the side of my studio while seeking acorns.
After much calculation, I figured out how many more Mineral King paintings are needed, which subjects and which sizes. This is based on numbers sold in previous summers, popularity of subjects, and women’s intuition. Time will tell if I have chosen correctly. (I can always paint roosters over the tops of the ones that don’t sell.)I chose the sizes, paired the canvases with the photos, assigned inventory numbers, titled the pieces, attached the hanging hardware to the backs, and primed the canvases.
The web designer said there is progress being made. Sounds as if I have hours and hours of computer work ahead as I load up all my art (NOT paying someone else to do this!)
March First Saturday in Three Rivers at Anne Lang’s was better than both January and February combined. Some fine folks were waiting for me to arrive (Hi D & B & R & A!!), a friend bought my lunch (T/U, GE!!), and a friend stopped by for a long overdue visit (Hi CHO!). Of course, sales made the day particularly happy, and I did more coloring in the Heart of Ag coloring book, along with lots of explaining to people how to layer with a minimalist box of Black Wing Colors.

And thus we conclude a random roundup of the business of art, as defined by me. I wonder how other artists go about their business? On artists blogs, they all sound so professionally successful, discussing plein air outings (oh shut up, that is so hard and I don’t know how and I am a studio artist and if I am outside it will be to hike, walk, prune or pull weeds), or packaging up things to deliver to galleries (galleries, schmalleries – this is Tulare County), or showing off big deal sales to a local hospital or courthouse or university (Hunh? those places spend money on art, big money on originals?? Not in Tulare County), or fancy commissions (I paint wooden geese and or draw barns), or shows in nice places (I do them in Art Centers without plumbing, the local Remorial Building, or in people’s stores or backyards).

HaHa. I live in Tulare County and they don’t.

Oops. Sold two more Mineral King paintings recently so I may need to recalculate! Customers keep depleting my inventory. . . what’s an artist to do except keep painting??

Odd Job With a Goose

This is Tony’s wooden goose with a coat of primer on it.

He didn’t give me any instructions other than to paint the goose. I found several helpful photos of Canada geese to work from, with visible head, neck, wing tops, wing bottoms, tail and the back.(What did people do before The Google came along to answer all our questions? They didn’t say yes to as many odd jobs.)

First step: mixing paint. I used my mural paints because this will be outside and because it needed to dry quickly.

White, burnt umber and phthalo blue, along with some grays, browns, a purple and an orange.

The first color, black, was achieved with the purple (alizarin crimson and ultramarine blue), phthalo and orange (cadmium yellow and cadmium red). I made a small dot of the color with white and it made a pure gray, so I knew it was black and not purple or brown or green.

Here is a brown that will work. It is an old mixture that I called “dark redwood”, but altered a bit here with orange and some of the black.

Ahem. I seemed to have painted this guy’s head upside down.

The underside of the wings are important, because this is a flapping goose that will be seen from all angles. I was able to flip the photos horizontally in order to see the goose both directions.

Will this work? Do I need more detail? The color is grayer on my goose than on The Google’s goose. Can I trust the photo? Will Tony be disappointed?

It was easiest to paint when it was lying flat and I could see each side at the same time.

Am I finished? I’ll email this photo to Tony and see what he says.

Whoa, Tony, you’d better come get this goose because he is trying to fly outta here!

commissions odd job odd jobs

More Blogging Thoughts

Chloe, colored pencil, private collection, chosen for this post because she is the opposite of a middle-aged blogger

I googled “middle-aged bloggers” and found several. One site posted an invitation for middle-aged bloggers to comment and put their site links in the comments, so I clicked through and read some of them. They are sort of boring. Lots of talk about why they started blogging, talk about their grandchildren, their new lives with their husbands gone, new grandchildren, new phases of life with new retirement, and clothing and hair color. Lots and lots of talk about staying young, dressing well, finding your style, whether or not to color your hair, staying positive. . . boring.

Scared me. Am I that boring? Why do they have so many subscribers and comments when they are boring? Why do I not when I am so witty, original, clever and entertaining? (Oh, and humble about my bloggery skills too. . .)

Life’s not fair. (My dad used to ask the rhetorical question, “Who said life has to be fair?” I once said this to a friend, and she replied, “I don’t know; was it Benjamin Franklin?”)

Several acquaintances and a few friends have expressed a desire to blog, and then nothing happens. They think I am “a-MAY-zing” for blogging so often, so consistently, so long. Well, they already have jobs; this is part of mine.

Because I am producing things that no one needs in a county where art is a definite luxury, because I am not on Facebook or Twitter or any of those instant and constant connected things, because I work in isolation and do not have a public studio, because there are only a small handful of galleries around here (and all are non-profit and run by volunteers who are not motivated by sales), because I choose to focus on Tulare County, I MUST do something public. Blogging is that something, and it suits me.

Many bloggers are now producing podcasts. I won’t say “never”, but I will say “probably never”. This is a trend, and I am too busy painting, drawing, teaching, figuring out various methods of marketing, doing shows and open studios and demonstrations and workshops, and of course, blogging.

I’ve got to keep being me, because all the other roles are already taken. I have too much to say, too much to show, too much to explain, too many thoughts about being a full time, self-employed artist in a poor, uneducated, rural county.

After all that, you deserve a treat. How about a nice cup of tea?

Tea Time, colored pencil, private collection (or did I lose this? Is it in my file somewhere?)

Tulare County artist

Barn Raising

Just kidding. I’m not raising a barn, just drawing it. Well, maybe I am raising it out of the vast whiteness of the paper.

I received these 2 photos along with many instructions. The top photo is how the barn looks now; the lower one is how it looked when the customer was a child and what he is wanting me to draw.

He also wanted me to match the size of the barn in this print, drawn (or is that ink with a watercolor wash or something else I don’t recognize?) by one of my art heroes.

Part of the business of art is communicating thoroughly and clearly with customers and potential customers. I realized that this job would require a sketch and approval of the sketch before I began, because there were lots of places for misunderstanding. I sketched it roughly 2″ x 3″, to match the proportions of the size the customer requested (measured in picas, so just trust me that it is proportionally correct).

Got it in one attempt! Sketch approved, drawing begun. The photo isn’t great, nor is the printer. I am working primarily from the sketch and the notes.

A few hours later, this is where I was:

I told the customer it would be 2-3 weeks, but commissions always jump to the front of the queue. (2 poppy paintings need a final layer, there are 4 paintings in Birdland, and I still need a few more paintings of the most popular Mineral King scene because 3 more sold last week. Not complaining, just explaining.)

commission pencil work drawing pencil drawing

Flowers in my Studio Yard

Ever heard of a studio yard? In my case, it is the yard area around my studio, a shabby little shed on the property. I suppose the proper and popular term is “garden”, but that feels wrong to me. The place is only partially planted, definitely not professionally landscaped; I’m not growing tomatoes and zucchini around the studio, and I don’t “putter about”. It is a haphazard yard, and sometimes it has flowers in it.

The iris are little things, a dwarf variety, blooming 3 at a time in an otherwise bare pot. They mostly just look good in photos. This is because I don’t know what I am doing, other than occasionally succumbing to impulse buys at the grocery store. “Hey look, bulbs, I wonder if there are any iris. . . look, here are some iris, must be fate that I buy them”.

ArtSpeak versus Reality

Weeds or wildflowers? Depends on one’s perspective, just as Artspeak can sound like wisdom or baloney.

“Artspeak” is a word I made up for all the stuffy pretentious insider terms used by professional artists. Some of the words are useful, because every profession has its own vocabulary. But for some reason, the way some artists talk just gets up my nose.

One of an artist’s more dreaded tasks is writing an Artist’s Statement. If it was allowed, mine would say “I saw it, liked it, photographed it, and painted it BECAUSE I THOUGHT IT MIGHT SELL!”. Instead, an artist is expected to be articulate, and even fluent in answering questions such as:

What informs the color in your work?

Is the subversion of closure an important element in your work?

What are the paradoxes in your work?

What are the paradoxes in the practice of painting?

How do your cultural roots inform your practice?

I think artists are expected to say things like this:

I’m constructing a framework which functions as a kind of syntactical grid of shifting equivalences.

Imagine the possibility that painting might take root and find a place to press forward into fertile new terrain

Instead, this is more my style of questions and answers:

1. What do you want people to see in your work? reality and the beauty of Tulare County

2. What is a distinguishing characteristic of your art? it looks real

3. Based on your conversations, what do people find delightful or surprising about your art? the level of reality.

That’s me, keeping things real, just an ordinary realist from a real rural place of realistic folks.

Finished Mineral King Oil Paintings For Sale

As promised, here are some finished Mineral King oil paintings from my Phactory Phases. Factory Fases? Too much cuteness for you? I’m sorry. Must be the oil fumes.

They are all oil paintings on wrapped canvas, which means the sides are painted so they don’t need frames. The prices don’t include 8% sales tax; if you live outside of California, you don’t have to pay it, lucky you. If you want to order, you can go to the sales page and use shopping cart and Paypal or you can send me a check in the Real Mail, the US Postal Service, my favorite way to reach out and touch.

I love to blog, to post here on my web log, weblog, blog, online journal. Mostly I just run on about the business of art, but sometimes I show you things for sale. I don’t wear plaid pants, assault people, lie or talk fast; instead, I just provide opportunities for my handful of readers to buy the things I make.

It is my hope that you enjoy my blog, and find enough opportunities to buy my work without feeling sold to.

Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

Blog Thoughts

Before I finished working on this blog post, I accidentally hit the Publish button instead of Preview. I immediately took it back down, but those of you who subscribe received the earlier version via email. Oops. Here is the real post.

April 15 will be the tenth anniversary of this blog. That is TEN YEARS of writing five days a week about the business of being a Central California artist.

As far as I can discover, NO ONE ELSE DOES THIS. More accurately, no one I know or have encountered on the World Wide Web has posted five days a week for ten years.

Lots of people start blogs. Lots of people quit blogging.

Many started their blogs with daily posts; as life sped up, bloggery wisdom changed. Five days a week used to be seen as the best method; now posting less often, perhaps once a week, is considered better..

I ignored the advice, because I have too much to say and blogging is just plain fun.

More grow-your-blog advice was to read and comment on other blogs. I did this, and in the process, I made 2 good blogger friends that I stay in touch with, along with some nice virtual acquaintances. This increased my readership by two.

Other bloggery wisdom advised doing guest posts on other people’s blogs; I did that a few times, and while it was fun, it increased my non-art-producing work without increasing my readership.

Another piece of advice is to “monetize” one’s blog. (Since when did “monetize” become a word?) What this weird word means is to sell ad space on one’s blog and to talk about products and books that one uses and likes, in hopes of getting people to click on the links and buy the products. This method is called using “affiliate links”. Feels pushy and sellsy and a little trashy to me. By “trashy”, I mean it clutters up the site and distracts the reader, inviting them to leave the page.

Not my style, although I have tinkered around with this too. Never earned more than about 15¢.

My readership is low, few readers comment, blogs are considered old-fashioned (gimme a break!!), I don’t have many subscribers, it costs money, and it takes time. Why do I continue to blog?

BECAUSE IT IS FUN, I LOVE TO DO IT, AND IT IS NOW A DEEPLY INGRAINED HABIT!

Besides, I know most of my readers in real life; we have real friendships and real interaction, not just “virtual” stuff, where people “hang out on social media”. Authenticity is one of my core values in life. I need realism in art, in friendships and in life.

Thank you for reading. Here, have a nice picture as a thank you for listening.

P.S. If you enjoy my blog and know other people who might like reading about earning a living as an artist in a poor uneducated rural area, people who are interested in Tulare County, people who love Mineral King, people who like realism in art and life, then send them the link to my blog.

There. That’s about as sellsy and pushy as I care to be. A bit too sellsy, but I guess it never hurts to ask.

Mineral King Oil Painting Factory, Phase II

This year I have set the goal of finishing all the Mineral King oil paintings well before the season begins. The Silver City Store has been selling my oil paintings since 2010, and it is good for them, for me, and for the customers. The past 8 years have provided a good idea of what sells and in what sizes and quantities. Why not look at this information and make a plan?

Phase I was finishing a large quantity of paintings in the month of January, some that were begun in December. The total was something crazy huge, like 2 dozen or so. I hadn’t planned on buying 4×6″ canvases or painting on 4 little boards that used to contain things like tomatoes, so the number went up. All this production forced me to figure out how to use my painting hours more efficiently, and in February, I am continuing with this plan.

(Do you need a nap yet? A cup of espresso?)

Phase II is filling in the gaps – do I have the right quantities of the best subjects in the most popular sizes? Nope, not yet. Here is how beginning another 8 paintings looks. It’s not that pretty, but it is not as gross as making sausage, I guess, although I’ve never witnessed that operation.

Wiring and writing titles and inventory numbers.

Buh-bye, sweet little pomegranate that no one wants.

Skies come second, after I have “toned” the canvas, which is Artspeak for smearing the gunk from the bottom of the turpentine jar all over it and letting it dry.

There are about 6 more subjects I want to paint. These are also Mineral King, but they involve new scenes.

If this seems a little repetitious to you, well, it is. It is a little repetitious to me to. That’s the thing about doing work for a seasonal business – it is repetitious because there are new customers every week, and they haven’t seen my paintings before. Or they saw them last year and want to add to the collection. Or, their friends saw their painting and wanted one too.

Mineral King Mineral King oil paintings oil paintings

What is Art Administration?

I don’t know what “art administration” means. Doesn’t it sound important?

Most days, Trail Guy asks me what I plan to do. Often the answer is “paint”; about every two weeks or so I say “administrative tasks”.

What this means is tending to the business of an art business. Going to lovely places and painting is only part of being an artist full time.

This is what an administrative day can look like:

Find boxes and packaging material to ship two paintings. One is almost right, but where is the box cutter so I can make it exactly right? Wait, I need a ruler too. . . where’s the bubble wrap? The packing tape?
Take all the newly dry paintings from the painting workshop to the real studio and scan painting after painting. Oh wait, that one has a weird green spot in the sky – must have been against one that wasn’t quite dry yet. Set it aside to touch up later.
Wait and wait and wait for a scheduled phone call with potential web designer. He said 10, sent an email that had something to do with The Google that said 6, I replied and said no, TEN, and he didn’t call. Then he emailed at 10:15 to ask if he could still call and say he was sorry for the confusion. Too much communicating going on here, but I kept scanning paintings until he finally called.
Long and satisfying phone call; make some decisions.
Put together a bank deposit.
Drive to town (just Three Rivers, a wonderfully self-contained “village”). Drop by the library first and pick up a book with wonderful photos because that is one of the many ways that an artist trains her brain and eye. Visit with the librarian who happens to room with my niece. (Tulare County is small.)
Go to the Post Office to send the packages, run into a friend who needs to find a web designer and pass along the (as of yet unproven) web designer’s info to her.
Go to the bank and see a former drawing student/friend/neighbor who asks, “Do you have a website?” SAY WHAT?? I clearly haven’t done enough advertising here in my own town!!
Run into the grocery store and see the friend who encouraged me to design and publish coloring books; her business is now closed, but I was able to encourage her in her new job. (no, not a grocery clerk – she was there repping a product to the store owner)
See a friend on the way home, one I help with her vacation rentals from time to time (so far have painted 3 murals for her in those rentals). Stop to catch up a bit.
Get home to a phone message about a messed up order. My supplier messed up the order, I emailed, and the owner of the company called to ask how to make it right. WOW! That’s rare great service! Longish phone conversation.
FedEx arrives with an order of canvases; I unpacked the box, and began to assign inventory numbers and photos to various sizes. I’ve been waiting for this order!
Put hanging hardware and titles on the backs, begin a few quick paintings, and realize that all the newly scanned paintings need to be entered onto the website.
Blog.

There are more things I haven’t finished, but it is almost quitting time. Really?? I could work until 10 p.m., but that would be rude. Besides, there are statistics about working longer than 9 hours; studies show that productivity drops. I think I could keep pushing, but there is no real sense of urgency, other than answering an email inquiry about a pencil drawing commission, and another about the book I am currently editing.

Since you made it to the end of this blog post about “art administration”, you deserve a treat. How about an ice cream cone?

Category: the business of art