I signed up for an 3 day ‘Explorations in printing workshop’ with some art bigwig print professor at Lakes Region Community College and made the hour drive up there on a Tuesday morning with “Hello fellow kids” jokes locked and loaded only to discover they’d cancelled due to a lack of interest in printing. Thanks for that kick in the balls, Lakes Region Community College, learn to work the email machine you jerkwads.
Gggrrrrr okay, something happier. With the suddenly free time I came home and finished the setup on this print:
The ink on the paper has a nice heavy, tactile feel; these artworks are satisfying to touch and hold… and then frame so nobody can ever touch them again.
And, satisfyingly, I got this one done the day before:
So that feels good. I feel like I need nine good artworks to make a show, (number based on exactly nothing). I have some Blue Jays to print and then I’ll be able to frame up a show at a time and go out like Johnny Birdartseed finding places to hang them.
Commissions are coming in via email and Facebook and singing their sirens song of actual money instead of theoretical future money, no brainer! Actually, brainer: I’m trying to morph from freelancer to fine artist because, well, THE GOAL.
THE GOAL: I would say *My* Goal but I think it’s the universal I-want-to-be-an-artist goal, we artist see it with perfect naivety when we set sail but it fades into the static of life and only becomes clearer long, long into the voyage, suddenly rising out of the fog to sink the ship. THE GOAL is, of course, to be able to just do the art we want to and make a living doing it. No clients, no commissions, no compromises or deadlines, no managing the print process or marketing the art, just sitting meditatively and creating genius artwork, then handing it off to someone else who will do all the other stuff.
I know, I know. You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting three artists and none of them are at THE GOAL… but look at your candy crush screen, someone is at the top, and that someone is going to be me.
So the Occam's razor in deciding what artwork to spend my time on has to be: Will this artwork help me in the future? Or another way to state it: Will I remember doing this artwork two months from now? I have a huge portfolio a hundred artworks deep and the great majority of them are just gone from my considerations. They’re all commissioned artworks with a specific purpose that is over now, and they’ll never help me or anyone else ever again.
I did take on a commision this week for an old client who I can’t say no to and spent a morning working on it, it’s here (client made the color choices):
For the parameters and purpose of the artwork It’s a grand slam: The client is happy, it didn’t take long, it’s an easy paycheck (although God knows when they’ll pay me) and it’s a good commissioned project but the awful truth is now it goes on the pile of ‘done’ artworks never to be heard from again.
Everything is in entropy, nothing lasts forever, the vast majority of workers in the world work on things they won’t remember in two weeks and I should stop complaining. Alright, moving on