While Deciding, Make More Art

Andy Warhol said while people are deciding if your art is good or bad, make more art. I have to confess, I wasn't much of a fan. I could appreciate his mocking elevation of mundane commercialism. But I didn't like his personality until I saw how he was portrayed in Men in Black. I would like to think that he was mostly putting on a production. He was very correct about making art. I think if you keep at it, eventually your passions shine through. All this is a long way of saying I was rejected.

I'm not surprised. I didn't submit my best work, I submitted what I had on hand. Normally when I enter a show or consider a market, I research carefully and try to make something that fits. I find this to be much easier than looking for something that fits me as I am. In an ideal gallery showing the artist would stretch into a better skill set and the gallery would stretch by presenting a wider variety of art rather than only accepting what sales. There is a balance in both parties of comfort and stress. In reality, the stress usually falls just on the artist. People who sell art only show what they are sure will sell. There may be a slight concern of when it will sell, but really galleries rarely have anything to loose.

That being said, in this case it took them 4 months to reject me. So I feel encouraged to try again because if I was awful I would have gotten a flat out no within a week or less. I hope they spent a lot of time trying to find an audience. And truly, they did say they weren't sure of who would like it. In other words, there wasn't any complaints about what I made or how I made it or suggestions for improvement.

But, and this is a big but, I don't think there's any point in creating art that no one wants to look at.

I've been thinking about this a lot lately because I need to come up with several pieces that are about me. I've got to build a portfolio of my work in order to prove what kind of artist I am.

I love this piece. It hangs on my fireplace. I see it every day and I love how the red and white seem to rotate. I haven't gotten tired of looking at it.

I love geometry. I find patterns soothing in and of themselves. But most people don't appreciate pattern alone, they want a thing with a cool pattern. The idea I'm leaning towards is a nice geometric background for soft sculpture. Yes, that would be a doll. No, I don't have anything made yet.

Here's my reasoning: At 41 I can't fucking see as well anymore. Plastic canvas has failed miserably at becoming retro hip so it's up to me to make it trendy. I prefer small projects for the selfish reason of how comforting it feels to do hand sewing. And I don't have a lot of space anyway. But I love quilting. I've gotten pretty good at making boxes now. I could have a box whose background seems to shift at every glance that holds a small, cunning fox. I like the idea of a fox hovering over a checkerboard because we humans play awful games cheating nature. I think an embroidered fox in a plastic canvas box would say something, as would a doll wrapped in a traditional quilt laying in a neon green box. The settings wouldn't match the subjects. Are we so far removed from our purpose than we desperately try to fit where we do not belong?

I have a lot of philosophy and no practical art today. I'm linking to Nina Marie's blog. What I've seen there today looks much better than anything I've done this week.
http://ninamariesayre.blogspot.com/2018/03/off-wall