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At the end of Friday night I had sold only two paintings. Carol, one of the dealer/ galleries turned to me and said, “Selling their own work can destroy an artist.” She didn’t elaborate.
Maybe it had something to do with my lack of sales. More likely her comment was about the thirty-something woman who picked a random painting from my rack and said, “Two hundred for this?” and slammed the wooden board back into the rack. I didn’t mind so much that she didn’t think my work was worth the money. I was wearing my helmet, but I hated that she had touched it, no, beat on it. “GET YOUR FUCKING HANDS OFF MY ARTWORK!” A thousand people can compliment you, but it is the one disparaging remark that sticks in your throat.
The clientele for this show was decidedly rich. If you can spend $300 at Marshall Field’s for a cute little skirt you will wear just for just one season, you can spend $200 on a painting. Don’t ask me if I will take $175. You didn’t say that to the sales clerk at Field’s, did you?
Selling is a peculiar thing.
The other part is sometimes I don’t want to sell to a person because they stink in some off-hand bad aura way.
Ironically my first sale was “Eve’s Exquisite Invitation #2.” The day before I left for the show I was antsy, (I get pre-event jitters) so I did this series. Daniel didn’t like them. He called them “below par...rushed.” “If I were you I wouldn’t put them out front.” So I put them right in front. The woman who bought it, loved it. She loved the apple and she especially loved the all-seeing eye. I am so happy that she now owns it.
The second woman bought one of my birthday cake paintings. She had slammed through the paintings in a fast shuffle, left, then returned with a hard bargain price. She said she wasn’t sure she wanted it. I said, “Then don’t buy it. There’s plenty of wonderful art here. Perhaps something else will do.” She bought my painting.
One man came up close to me and said, “I do dolls too. I spread their hair out like you do and spray it. I don’t paint them though. I like them fleshy. At night I imagine they are doing interracial things… and other things. I just wanted to tell you.” Now that’s what I am after. I laughed so much. And no he didn’t buy anything. He didn’t have to.
Was the show a success? Yes, I would say it was. I made a goodly amount of money…all cash, not one check. But everything is relative. The dealers next to me made far more than I did…many thousands!!!!!! They did it on the magical $25 item. Everybody has $25 to throw away and they did…on Mexican trinkets, Haitian mandalas, and in one store figural metal cutouts on sticks flew into people’s hands. Yet on Sunday when I spoke to many of the artists who were self-representing some had sold zero.
I will admit that this is a rich person’s game. With the exorbitant show fees, travel to and from the show, hotels for two nights, food, etc. you need to have some cash just to participate.
Was it worth it? I say YES!
My feelings about my art, selling my art, go like this: I have boxes of paintings. I did over 200 in the past 2-½ years since the car accident. I have sold a bunch of them to friends, at introduction parties that friends have given me, and now at two shows. I still have a lot left. Most of them are in boxes upstairs. I want them to have a life. I want them to be scattered in homes across this country. My creating them is only the first step. Their true life begins when someone other than me owns them. I don’t want to be one of those artists that is discovered when I am stone cold…like the current Henry Darger paintings. No one wanted him when he was alive, living in a rundown city basement flat and now oo-la-la his work is hot, hot, hot. Why is it that the congensia prefers an artist to be dead?
I am tempted to do another show and sell the paintings at dollar-store prices. Maybe I need to disassociate myself from them. (Maybe that’s what Carol meant.) Something like $50 for the small and $100 for the large. Is that still too high? Do I make them worthless by pricing them so low? Am I disparaging the collectors who paid my original prices? All of this is very tricky. It is difficult to figure the marketing part out.
I do know that I consider the paintings at risk. They are works on wood (mostly) and if they attract moisture they will warp. Or a fire could wipe out my entire body of work. In some ways they have become baggage. Take them please.
