The Nature of Art: The Lofty and the Pragmatic
It’s a bad economy out there-for teachers, for real estate brokers, for bankers, for automobile manufacturers, pretty much a bad economy out there for everyone. So what happens to the artist when the economy goes sour? We live in a pragmatic country, where in general what seems to count is what generates money, so when the general economy goes down how then does that affect artists who like everyone else wants and needs to generate income from their work but whose initial impetus for making art doesn’t necessarily come from the idea of generating a product to make money, but instead comes from an ineffable place within the artist?
For artists affliated with a gallery, the gallery owner has been the person who has championed and been the liaison between the artist and their work and the potential buyer/collector, but these days galleries have had difficulty keeping afloat, so then what? What is the artist to do if their gallery closes? Recommendations abound on how to generate interest and sales in your work if you are an artist who is not currently represented by a gallery and the recommendations have run the gamut from selling your work online via paypal, to slashing your prices in half, to bartering to having sales in your home kind of like a tupperware party. Some art consultants recommend lowering prices to meet the new economy which something I am considering. I tell some artists in my building about this idea, the idea of selling work at lower prices to meet the economy but then I hear from them that they think it’s a bullshit idea as their most recent experience was to have just sold 10 paintings within one week at a benefit they just participated in, at full price.
The reason that I became an artist was that when I was eight years old I had a voice tell me that the highest religion was making art and that I would be an artist. And so I followed my internal compass and became an artist. I’ve sold work but not regularly-have had jobs that have supported me, had financial assistance through family and through my previous marriage, but haven’t been dependent on the marketing of my work to support me, but now in the worst possible economy my work is getting attention and I need to generate income through my work but am coming up against how to maintain integrity to both myself and to my work while at the same time selling a product, a regular conjugal visit between the lofty and the pragmatic.
May 25th, 2009 at 3:14 am
When I first started out, I hung my pen and inks in a local candle shop. Another artist who did the same called me to say I needed to raise my prices. I told her I wanted to sell my work and I did. That enabled me to continue and eventually do pastel portraits by commission. Interestingly, no one ever told me I wasn’t charging enough because they were paying for it. Now I spend a lot of time in the Arts District in Portland, Maine and I am aware of an insidious elitism that permeates the community of artists. To a certain degree this is encouraged by many of the galleries. I also spend a considerable amount of time within the art education environment and the elitism is even more apparent there. Unfortunately, I think this reflects our society. As a student at Bowdoin, this elitism was part of the curriculum. I think lowering your prices to sell your work is common sense especially if it enables you to keep working.