Pappy (2007)

I may never love it, but I managed to come to an acceptable conclusion with a painting I had given up on. My dog Pappy, in all his overindulged glory.

Back Beach (2003)

There's one important lesson I must never forget. Never, never, never... no, wait, always photograph a painting before it is framed. These are paintings on paper framed under glass, and I am not psyched to pull them all apart to snap a pic. I used to despise shooting slides back in the old days, but there is no excuse in the age of digital photography for not capturing some record of my work. Even with a mediocre digital photo I can rotate it and tweak the white balance and get a reasonable facsimile of the painting. I was even told that places like Kinko's do large format scans cheaply, but maybe that is overkill.

With this dismal photo I was futzing around trying to take a picture in a dark room at an angle to avoid reflections off the glass, but still ended up with reflections off the paint and had to fiddle with keystoning. I've been hounding a guy at work who took photos of a bunch of my pieces before they were framed and put on exhibit at the office, but he's crazy busy. I don't even like the frame this is in, but hate reframing even more.

Solving the Mystery of Selling Art, Part 1

Fish, 1986

Twenty years ago in New Mexico I tried to fix the problem of feeding myself by cranking out dozens of folky fish sculptures and selling them for less than $100. I saturated the market of my friends and acquaintances pretty quickly, so I headed up to the Santa Fe galleries. The guy at Davis Mather Folk Art Gallery was nice enough to buy a few pieces, but I wasn't a legit folk artist. Back then it seemed like a disadvantage to have gone to art school. I put stuff into some gallery on Canyon Road, but I don't recall selling anything. Lesson learned: manic production and low prices don't necessarily translate into sales.

But the internet certainly puts a new spin on things. Yesterday I came across Duane Keiser's A Painting a Day site, and my past came flooding back. Start a blog, open an eBay account, and you're golden. A friend down in Austin mentioned a neighbor who sold paintings of trees on eBay, and I guess this was her deal too. It doesn't take much looking to find dozens of similar blogs-- I have no idea who was first. They commonly are selling unframed, postcard-sized oil paintings on artboard for about $300. Typically they seem to be naturalistic painters. It might be harder to sell abstracts done daily, because that would just reinforce the conventional notion that they take no skill or effort. Some of these studies are really very good. Then again some look like muddy relics out of an estate sale. And few of these artists seem to maintain the daily pace for very long-- I can imagine it would get to be a grind pretty quickly, infecting your attitudes about painting with a commodity mentality. But, hey, art for the people, baby.

From the Fiddlehead (2007)

Pier in Crockett Cove (2007)

A smaller painting I did this summer while up in Deer Isle.

Unfinished (2005)

I like this one better than many of the ones I get around to finishing. Hmmm.

Barred Island (2007)

Apple Tree (2005)

Lobster Boat, Southwest Harbor (2005)

Elana's Garden (2005)

Blog Goals

For about a year and a half I have been maintaining a tribute blog to my dog, Pappy. Weird. Yes, thanks, I know. It's been a fantastic creative outlet from the standpoint of getting me in in a routine of writing, creating images, and even making movies. In fact, it's even drawn me out of the habit of painting and making art regularly. For that I also have to credit Pappy, because he hates to go down in the basement where I work.

I'm fast approaching early retirement from a regular job, and one of the things I always had in mind for that part of my life was to start making art full time. My house is already full to overflowing with my paintings, so I also have the idea that I'd like to pay a few bills by selling my artwork. Preferably not at flea markets. Not that there is anything wrong with that.

So what does a guy who wants to kick start his artistic production do to focus his efforts? What does he do when he finds himself distracted by an obsession with blogging and the internet? Well, heck, why not start a blog about doing art? Hopefully this blog will help keep me on track with producing art, figuring out how to market it, and discovering what I want to do with the rest of my life.