Value of Art and Culture

 Sometimes people ask me why art is important? They think it is just decoration. Why invest in original art? 

Art affects every part of our lives. Our cars, furniture, kitchen tools, gardens, and almost all products are the result of art design. 
Without original art we have no culture, no refinement in our society. We have more civility with art, and that is sorely needed. Art and culture are the barriers against chaos and meanness of society. We must teach our children that all the arts are vital to their society in every generation. 
Art is not just for the wealthy or highly educated. It is for all of us. I still am stunned by the portraits of John Kennedy, Martin Luther King, and others. Artists are the historians of our own time on this earth. 
My collectors like to think of my paintings as vacations. They can go to that place and leave the stress of their day instantly, even if just for a moment. I have never believed in reproductions. I think they cheapen our art and encourage a throw away attitude about art. 
When a collector buys my work, they have exclusivity. No one else will ever have that painting if they wish to keep it and pass on to the next generation. Original art is special, and should be treasured. I have a large variety of prices for that reason. 
We should be teaching our children that art is vital to our society for every generation.
Life is wonderful for country painters.....

Clear Up

 It’s been awhile since I went through my older paintings in storage. I think it is time to clear up my inventory. Some of the paintings in storage are some of my favorites, so they are rotated into the studio inventory again in future. Others were part of my experimentation of palettes, brush work, and other elements of painting. There is nothing wrong with them but I have advanced beyond them and improved. 

 

I am thinking of filling my browse boxes and saving the frames for new work. I’ve not had a painting sale since 2018. Some if the smallest paintings will go into my free art gallery. It will be a fair amount of effort to sort through the work and put it in the sale bins, but it’s nice to give people a chance to own original art at a good discount.  It’s good for me to move them out too.  I’ll have them ready by September 1.

 

Country painters always need studio space….

Influencers

 I study marketing a lot, to enhance my career. Artists have to sell paintings to live.  There seems to be a thing now called influencer marketing.  It is all the rage.

I know several artists who depend on this scheme to make a living. The idea is that they must have thousands of social media followers to sell art. The necessary number is a hundred thousand +. They must post a certain number of times a day, follow celebrities, and other “influencers”, have the right hash tags, and many other requirements. They must use sales funnels and landing pages. These formulas will make them successful.

This idea is appalling to me. These are artists who will say that I just don’t understand. In my view, this is like going to a get rich quick convention. Whatever happened to being a real person who actually works hard in the studio every day, who actually cares about the people who follow and share their own lives with their favorite artists? If this is a turn off for me, you can bet it will be for art collectors. No one wants to be constantly sold to and manipulated with formulas.

I am admittedly old school. Most of my collectors are my friends. I actually care about their ups and downs, good and bad days. My collectors are real people with real lives, not numbers on social media. I’d rather have a hundred friends than 100,000 strangers following me because they think I might be cool or know someone cool. 

Life is real for country painters....

Painting Fun

 I’ve been practicing my acrylic skills this summer, first with small paintings on watercolor paper, and lately the 8x10, 11x14 and 12x16 sizes. I have slowed down a bit and pay attention to the stages of the painting. I think carefully about decisions. Hopefully I will be ready for the fall season of tea parties and my front porch show at The Artisan’s Guild on October 29th. It is all good fun!

 

Country painters have a wonderful life…

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