Think outside the white box.

It can be very hard to manage the whole process of being an artist. To navigate your way towards success, to enable you the self-sufficiency to continue your artistic passion. Firstly there is ordinary life to contend with: family, bills, food shopping, illness, laundry, tidy up and repeat. Then there is finding a space to work, buying materials and making canvasses followed by varnishing and framing/presentation. These two things are hurdles that on there own could stop you in your tracks. Ideas and actually painting can be the least of an artists challenges. I never thought I would say that.

The next hill to climb is towards exposure, powered by dreams, determination and social media to reach the pot of gold: A sale! There is already a bottleneck of talented artists seeking to exhibit in white-box style galleries, with as much as 50% commission lining the galleries pockets. Further, the artist needs to fund and arrange the safe transportation of their work to and from the location plus insurance costs.

Last night I had a crazy dream of a gallery in my garden. A garden gallery for one day only. Maybe this is not such a mad idea, weather permitting. It has led my thinking towards alternatives to exhibiting in galleries and ways to cut the middlemen out of the selling equation. I quite like the idea of a backdrop of a flower border to my paintings and a birdsong soundtrack. With luck I could even have my own Damien Hirst butterflies. So rather than contemplating all the hurdles, maybe it's time to work with my limitations and stretch the boundaries of how an artist can exhibit their work.

My house may need some TLC, but I have the prettiest cherry tree at the end of the garden.

 Last week I bit the bullet and started a Facebook artist page A had been stalling on this, because I was waiting for the day when I eventually had the money to purchase a decent camera and take quality photographs of my artwork. This day is not likely to come any day soon. There will always be something else that funds need to be spent on, however a hand held camera phone is not going to give a professional impression. I have always struggled to photograph large reflective oil paintings. My new plan involved a tripod found in the local charity shop, a budget camera left here and forgotten for a while by a relative, that I might as well "borrow" and my new white photographic studio (the garden on a grey day covered in unseasonable snow). Follow the link above to see my results.

Using the snow as a white photographic studio.

 I posted about my garden gallery dream, on my new Facebook page and got a helpful and positive response. Thanks Ruth ! My favourite way to spend free time is looking at art, being in a garden, drinking tea and eating cake. The actualisation of this is a way off yet. Time will always be scarce, I have children to look after and a house to clean but I believe it is something to work towards. Through my Facebook post I discovered Reminiscence Vintage a local business who supply beautiful vintage china, linen , bunting and artefacts and cater for afternoon tea events who are interested in working with artists. It seems that lots of peoples favourite things include art, cake and flowers. The pipe dream of an "On The Fence" exhibition could become a reality.

Just a thought, if anyone has a spare lorry, what about this for an idea. Instead of a mobile library, have a mobile gallery featuring a number of artists work inside with the sides of the truck advertising the idea. Take the art to the people, to the city, the village fete or just pull up outside a national gallery. You could even have a visitor's book and tea and cake! I'm sure it would get some publicity. Unfortunately I can't afford a lorry or have a HGV license. This one will probably have to remain a pipe dream.

Artists Beware! Could Juried Art Contests Be Glittering Scams?

 I entered a juried art competition recently, it was the first one I've entered and it was only £12, no big deal. I was enticed, it seemed better odds than buying a lottery ticket, but was it? I started to get suspicious, and the more I've looked into it, the more these competitions, however prestigious, seem obscene. I didn't get accepted, so maybe you can right me off as bitter, after all I had fully expected to be the next newly discovered "Master" of the 21st century and now I'm not, and I wont be able to spend, spend, spend the thousands of pounds I could have won. Ultimately, I lost £12. Bah humbug!

At first, it is only natural to feel rejected by rejection. What if my art is crap ? Well what if it really is, even if you are crap and don't know it, even if your work is laughable, like the hapless tone-deaf participants on the X-Factor auditions, is it right that they are funding their institutions on wannabes broken dreams? Never mind the struggling emerging artists that genuinely need financial help and critical encouragement. And they know you want that, they promise EXPOSURE, PRESTIGE and TONS OF CASH! How can you resist? and if you were not successful this time, try again, there will be other jurors next time, and if you believe in your work because you know you aren't crap, then you may be tempted to try and try and pay and pay again. Just one more fix.

And so my anger began to build up to a blog post. It's no longer about my £12 (some of these competitions charge far more and you are encouraged to submit more than one entry) it's about all the other thousands of artists who paid the fees and where and who does it go to ? Does it do anything for the arts? Even the lottery puts something back into the community. Are they supporting artists, or are they really supporting their institution.  Even if you are one of the chosen ones, will you have anything "real" to show for it apart from a line of text to add to your CV. Do the institutions give information regarding previous sales that took place at the exhibition. After the costs of transporting your work, insurance and high commissions is it still a profitable venture? Will the artist's work get lost among hundreds of other pieces and who will be attending the private view?

A little search on Google, appeared to back up my suspicions, which I hope are unfounded, but I think all artists should be aware and consider the following which paints a sinister story:

"Juried shows with an entry fee are almost always a total scam. Normally it's a foregone conclusion who's going to be selected for the show, and the people who pay the fee and get rejected are just chumps, pure and simple. Those who don't belong to the clique need not apply. Art is an insider's game; it's all about who you know. If you don't know Jessica, James, Steven, or any of their friends, don't waste your $25"

"The, supposedly prestigious show I was accepted in, this past year, appeared to be focused on the reception which was attended almost exclusively by the participating artists. And they were a drop in the bucket compared to the hundreds whose work was not accepted. I did not get the idea that many buyers were in attendance, or that the gallery was even concerned about sales. It was a show for artists, and basically paid for by the throng of artists that did not get accepted. The lucky few that won awards made money but for the rest, it's all expenses"

I also discovered an interesting blog post by Swarez Art, the comments afterwards were also worth a read.

I really do hope this is not the case and I could enter again and be discovered (just one more time, it's only £12!)  I could depict the text of a standard rejection email in paint and enter it next year in a floating frame, but I won't. This experience has reinforced my desire to get on with what really matters, my art. To create my paintings regardless, and hope that my integrity is held within them. Artists should not have to pay for someone to scan over a JPEG of their art or to have their work shown. In the same way, may I never succumb to the pretentious art-speak or prostitute myself, by sucking up to the art cliques to be accepted.

If the winners are already chosen from a select bottleneck of favourites, and the rest of us are the fodder to feed them then this is beyond hideous. All art competitions need to be transparent with anonymous submissions, of which the John Moore's Painting Prize is a leading example. Art is business, and as artists we forget this at our peril.

A portal to understanding.

 I love art.  I almost drink it through my eyes and skin as if by osmosis, straight to the soul.  Like beauty and nature, art is pleasure without satiation.  Replenishing like pure, cool spring water.

Old opened oak. Photo. 2010. Markeaton park. Derby.

 Beauty is in the eye of the beholder, and it is impossible to please all of the people all of the time, but I think art should strive to connect to the masses.  Here is an interesting link I found at Gillian Holding's Twitter: How gallery visitors view work.
 I cannot stand elitism.  The false mystery created by high-art priests, circling in their cliques and separating new clothes for emperors only.  What is this hierarchy that makes one human animal more capable than another, to experience a work of art.  The term "dumbing down" baffles me.  I value the comprehension of clear expression.  Specialisation and intellectualism are commendable pursuits, but if you really understand, exclusionary terminology can be put aside.  Isn't that the wonder of a picture, that it can give you it's thousand words in one physical blast of interaction.  A resonating mirror reflecting a journey.

Mona Lisa. Leonardo Da Vinci. 1503 - 1506.

  Art that speaks to you as you walk past it, with the power to stop you in your tracks is my ideal.  If I have to read a label in order to appreciate a piece, it still has it's place in the gallery, as a vehicle for depicting theories, but ultimately I look for an emotional response. Art can prompt a kind of nostalgia, fused with a primeval sense of homecoming that we cannot quite grasp before it fades. Leaving only a distant sense of sadness.
 What is it about the Mona Lisa's smile that has intrigued for centuries.  What is the answer to her enigmatic puzzle.  This is the kernel in art I am searching for, the key to the doorway back to the source of inspiration.  A portal through to the mysterious state the artist once inhabited.  It is a rousing of something deeper.  A clue of what it is that makes us more than mere functioning automatons.

Inside the oak. Photo. 2010.

 An artist sends their energy into a creation, it's internal structure and outer form designed by thought and desire.  When finished it is a separate, contained expression of human life released into the world. Captured evidence of why we are here and what we are about.  This is were reproductions in books or online can be a massive disservice.

  I wander through exhibitions like a criminal archaeologist, searching for meaning in the layers of paint, still infused with a residue of creation.  Google art project is a wonderful find, enabling you to walk around and zoom in and out on the artworks.   Turner's fingerprint caught for eternity in a watercolour. Bits of sand, rock and leaves caught in the paint when Monet painted outside.  Such physicality and immediacy can connect us to a place and time, the story of the room, the brushes, the process.   

Interior at Petworth. Detail. JMW Turner. 1837.

 The simplicity of a line drawing, when only a pencil separates the mind from the image can convey a power and honesty, revealed by it's lack of interference.  As Hockney said of Turners' watercolours "they come direct from the heart down the arm."
  I have always been fascinated by forgery.  Although an art of deception, a forger's intense scrutiny and accurate execution must give them an enviable closeness to the original artist.  Whether by sheer craftsmanship, imagery, scale or use of colour and medium, art in all it's forms can open our perception.