Join me on You Tube (see below for the link) but read this first!
Well it’s been a crazy week of revolving doors for me as new doors swing open and old doors slam shut . Generally speaking though that’s great news… and a sign that things in my Universe are starting to shake out!
You know… it’s kind of fun to stand back and watch from a distance all the action happening in your own life. Letting go of outcomes and allowing things to just be can be a bit scary at times… but it’s fun nonetheless. And I could get used to it. [Grin]
The global economic climate (not to be confused with climate change per se- grin) has given everyone quite a bit to think about. But for creative artists of all persuasions (be they painters potters or musicians) the struggle to do well at what we do well… has always been pretty difficult. And historically nothing has changed.
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour
Copyright © 2007-09 Jean Burman
Vincent Van Gogh was creatively and financially supported throughout his entire career by his brother Theo. He never sold a painting. We may well laugh now at how wealthy he might have been in his own lifetime. But he wasn’t. He was a man ahead of his time. But no-one really got that. Not even his fellow artists. Especially not his fellow artists. Consequently without the creative endorsement he craved… he was condemned to continually question his own worth as an artist.
Sound familiar?
The upshot of course was that Vincent finally sliced off an ear and died in a garret with two bullet holes in his stomach partly because he couldn’t handle it anymore. He gave up. And it’s easy to give up on a world that doesn’t know that stars are blobs of swirling bright light circling the evening sky… [grin]
Cartoon Pen & Watercolour
Copyright © 2007-09 Jean Burman
Creative spirits live in a world of their own. There is no clear direction forward for us… not to mention… very little endorsement or feedback for what we’ve already done.
Yes… we know what we want. But what the rest of the world wants is an entirely different matter. Complicate that further by saying that much of the rest of the world doesn’t actually know what they want… or what they like [without being told]… and we have one very perplexing problem!
In the end… fame and fortune pretty much comes down to the “hype” around the product… and not necessarily the product itself. The people who eventually gain recognition… are not necessarily those with the most talent… but those who are best able to bring their product to the marketplace via the best most expedient method.
But this is all terribly left brain stuff. And most artists (well the creative ones anyway) are incredibly right brain orientated. That’s what makes them… surprise surprise… so darned creative!
For my part… well… I don’t want to be famous but I do want to get my stuff out there. So that means I have to spend at least some of my time in the left brained world. It’s a funny nuts and bolts place to be… but it can be a whole lot of fun as well.
Check out my new You Tube clip here.
It was a challenge to put this together and the best fun you can ever have all by yourself in iPhoto and on YouTube. Would also like to thank Paul Simon [the voice and lyrics of my childhood] for the use of Punkey’s Dilemma… the cornflake song… what a great little song it still is!
For my part… I just want to paint and write… live… laugh and love. Whatever comes after [in/around and between] all that… who knows and who even cares? It’s my life. And I’m only going to get one chance at it. I make mistakes like everyone else. And have suffered probably more than my fair share of sadness. But I am also blessed in so many ways.
And the great thing is I am finally beginning to realise that absolutely nothing is ever set in stone. Doors open and close all the time with intermittent regularity. And all that’s required of us is a willingness to step through the next open door to see what’s on the other side. It’s as easy as that! *wink*
The real prizes in life go to whoever opens the most doors… and investigates as fully as possible their own individual potential. There are no guarantees we will survive this life… in fact… it’s a pretty sure thing that we’re not going to make it out alive!
So heck… while we’re here we may as well give it our best shot. With or without any thanks… or claps… and regardless of the heckles… [or the people who would persist in placing obstacles in our way]
Doing our creative thing… whatever that may be… is our gift to the world as much as ourselves. And you never know… maybe someday… someone… somewhere…. might just get it and go WOW!
If not… well… we had a whole heck of a lot of fun doing whatever it was we got to do!
Didn’t we?
Would love to hear your comments about YOUR creative life and experience. Drop me a line here!
Oh… and before I forget… the 2010 Universal Artist Calendar is now available for immediate shipping over at RED BUBBLE [in case you didn't get that already LOL] Okay… that’s enough shameless self promotion for me… back to painting… writing… more dreaming *sigh* :-)
{ 24 comments… read them below or add one }
Hi Jean…REALLY COOL!! Just like you. I’ve always thought that you think with both sides of your brain and I don’t know many artists who do. I’m still loving doing the kaleidoscope paintings that are so different but I feel that my work might stand out because they are different. I am either creative or have a cracked brain (fractured kaleidoscope brain). I feel that many doors are going to open for you. Just hang in there and continue what you are doing. You know how to promote yourself…GO girl!!
Hahaha… thanks Ellie!
I love your kaleidoscope paintings. They are what you say… so very different and unique. They are you. And I think that’s all that we can ask of our art… that it represents and defines who we are as an artist… and goes some way to explain why we do what we do… in a way that will make others see what we see. I think it’s a noble challenge. And you are an artist who is definitely up to that challenge!
Hi Jean! You are going places … definitely! Gosh, we could be twins the way we think. Of course, we are both artists so that does make us related in some way.
P.S. Great job on the youtube clip!
Thanks Nita
Going places… yessss… now all I need is a map! Grin.
The clip was so funny to do. I thought I should also mention that I did actually drink the prop but not until much later with dinner! (((chuckles)))
Oh really now … I thought in each one of those pictures that came up with you in the red beret, which I love by the way, you were holding a new “prop” because you had drank the one in the previous slide. LOL….. I’m glad you posted “you” in the red beret. Love it!
Great job, Jean, and lots of fun to watch. I too was concerned about whether that wine got polished off, and was delighted to find the answer in the comments.
A couple of thoughts:
I’m with Ellie in the notion that artists “think” with both sides of their brain. More specifically, I’ve reached a different conclusion about right-brain/left-brain processing from exactly the same research results as the “experts.” I believe the right brain processes in what I call “thought stacks,” the flashes of thought we constantly have, intuitions, insights, brainstorms, recollections, etc. The left brain is responsible for what I call “information streams,” the transforming of instantaneous thoughts to communication. It is the ability of artists to be able to transform their creative impulses into works of art, whether it’s the written word, brushstrokes, musical notes, etc. that makes them artists, and that takes both sides of the brain working together constantly. (It also works in reverse. Incoming information streams received by the left brain are transformed into thought stacks by the right brain.) It can’t possibly be true that most people are “left brained,” i.e. rational, organized, communicative, tending to be less affected by impulse or beliefs. If it were we wouldn’t have religion, advertising, or politics, all of which play right into peoples’ irrationality.
You’re so right, Jean, to think in terms of getting your work out there. Throughout history artists have needed to be skilled at marketing themselves, even if it was just finding a patron. It’s only relatively recently (the last hundred and fifty years) that we artists have embraced the notion of the artist as being idealists superior to the “marketplace,” starving in garrets while others got their hands dirty doing the selling. We’ve bought into the Vincent Van Gogh syndrome as evidence of how unfairly the world can treat us. Even today the most successful artists (those with seven figure yearly incomes) tend to be shameless self-promoters.
hahaha Nita! I would have been knocked out cold and incapable of completing the task after just one glass! LOL
Thanks John
So glad you enjoyed it.
The thought stack assessment makes perfect sense. I like that one. Yes… it would be hugely simplistic of us to assume that complex high order thought processes and impulses could be attributed and assigned to any one particular side of the brain exclusively. My meaning here is probably more metaphorical… (which in actuality probably transgresses the notion I hold of people as individuals not stereotypes… complex and unique… but perhaps with similar emotional impulses)
For my part… I know I can’t write with music playing (it’s just too darned distracting) But I can paint with music playing… in fact… I love to paint with music playing. I’ve found the music somehow weaves it’s way into the painting… whether I’ve heard it or not. Sometimes I reach the end of the CD incredulous at not having heard a favourite track. Bizarre. This tells me that the brain is processing the variety of information in an entirely different way.
Maybe it’s a bit like the phenomenon that many of us have experienced of driving on remote control? And the horror of arriving somewhere with no memory of the road or how we got there! This could of course be a classically stereotypical out of mind right brain experience peculiar to creative types… but I do believe even accountants and bank managers do this from time to time. Go figure. We are amazing creatures!
Re: the shameless promotion of self and the role artists play in remaining aloof to the tawdry business of making enough money to eat… I don’t think it comes naturally to the spiritually creative to be so commercial. Most would rather spend their days painting… writing… or making music… than worrying about accounts. But in the nuts and bolts world of enterprise (and for the purposes of survival) that’s how it must work.
I believe academia has played a serious role in establishing the notion that real artists can’t be commerical AND academically acknowledged at the same time. When you look around… how many of those 7 figure yearly income artists are there with work gracing the walls of the major art institutions? Perhaps it is just this country. But when you consider artists such as the much loved hugely successful and ever popular Australian artist Pro Hart who died with a broken heart and without one single representation in a major institution in this country… it seems inconceivable…
PS John [and Roger]… the calendars are on their way but have been delayed by US customs. ETA around Dec 15 but will keep you posted. Another case of obstacles in the way… and bumbling bureaucracies at work! Thanks for your patience.
All good things are worth waiting for. [grin]
Jean, you wrote:
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For centuries the making of art was, in fact, considered to be a commercial enterprise, supported mainly by the church and royalty. It started changing somewhere back around the 1700’s when shipping created a middle class that sought status through the acquisition and display of art. Even then, though, making and selling art remained largely commercial, with many artists running “schools” that churned out “product.” It can be argued that it wasn’t until the late 18th century, when the Impressionists challenged the establishment (represented by the Academy), that personal expression became the rule and artists ceased to be primarily businessmen.
You wrote: “I believe academia has played a serious role in establishing the notion that real artists can’t be commercial AND academically acknowledged at the same time.”
I don’t think this is quite accurate. In reality, museums have tended to slavishly follow the Big Bucks marketplace, spending millions of dollars on whomever is fashionable at the moment. I remember when I was in college seeing some huge canvases painted a dull black stored in the basement of our small theatre on campus. I suggested to someone that we throw them out, but he said we couldn’t because they were “Frank’s paintings.” Frank was Frank Stella, then a senior, and for a few decades he was raking it in from collectors and museums alike with his minimalist “paintings,” not to mention being lionized by critics and academia. Nowadays he’s gone out of fashion, replaced by a whole new crowd, and his work languishes in museum storage rooms. Fashion trumps commercial success. It’s not so much a matter of how much artists are earning as it is whether or not the Park Avenue galleries are pushing them at collectors. There’s a herd mentality in fine art.
There are really two separate discussions, I believe, when it comes to art. One has to do with the origins of art back in prehistoric times. In what way was “art” essential to genetic survival? How did it answer the question posed by Gaugin: “Where did we come from, who are we, where are we going?” The other discussion is what has art become in a commercial world marked by cultural breakdown?
Whoops, the computer erased my first quote from you, Jean, which was: “Re: the shameless promotion of self and the role artists play in remaining aloof to the tawdry business of making enough money to eat… I don’t think it comes naturally to the spiritually creative to be so commercial. Most would rather spend their days painting… writing… or making music… than worrying about accounts. But in the nuts and bolts world of enterprise (and for the purposes of survival) that’s how it must work.”
Hi John
There are probably more than two discussions that could be potentially had… and I’d wager a bet that Gauguin was not the only one to ask the fundamental question. In all likelihood anyone who ever created anything… invented something… or spent time pondering the meaning of life itself… probably had this one question in mind.
QUOTE [I don’t think this is quite accurate. In reality, museums have tended to slavishly follow the Big Bucks marketplace] UNQUOTE
Perhaps true to some extent… but certainly not so much here in this country especially now. [Here] what is often accepted by academia is simply a case of the emperor’s new clothes… where learned eyes can see what the ordinary man/woman in the street fails to. And where formal education… whilst wringing life out of individual expression… assures safe passage to the [less than talented] and turns it’s nose up toward those who have not passed through its hallowed halls. It’s nothing new. As you rightly point out… the Impressionists led the charge toward self expression… creative freedom… (and in many cases financial despair) and paid dearly through their forced alienation from the Salon for having the audacity to try something new and strike out against the academic establishment of the day. You are correct in saying it all changed from there. The Impressionists were the first artists to paint subjects according to their own choice and in a style not readily accepted at the time. They paid a heavy price to protect that creative freedom and guaranteed themselves a place in history as the poorest artists of all time in their own time. As you say fashions change and oddly the same rule applies that applied then… once the artist is dead and can no longer produce… the work becomes then… and only then… priceless in eyes of the marketplace. But often this is still not enough to shake the institutions from their lofty precipice overseeing all and deeming what shall be acceptable and what shall be not… in the learned eye of the Institution.
I’m not sure what happened. I posted a lengthy (sorry ’bout that) response to the above and submitted it, but it didn’t show up. When I tried to resubmit it told me I’d already done it and so wouldn’t accept it.
I’ll try yet again.
You wrote: “There are probably more than two discussions that could be potentially had… and I’d wager a bet that Gauguin was not the only one to ask the fundamental question. In all likelihood anyone who ever created anything… invented something… or spent time pondering the meaning of life itself… probably had this one question in mind.”
You’re quite right, of course, Jean. I referenced Gaugin because it’s the title of one of his greatest masterpieces, done during his years in Tahiti:
http://www.alloilpaint.com/impression/gauguin/gauguin89.jpg
I’m not sure if anyone else has articulated the essence of art in quite this way.
You wrote: “[The Impressionists] paid a heavy price to protect that creative freedom and guaranteed themselves a place in history as the poorest artists of all time in their own time.”
It’s interesting and germane to the discussion, I think, that the Impressionists for the most part were very much business-minded, and indeed organized and promoted their salons in order to put their work in front of the public, since they were being excluded from the Academy exhibitions. Far from being idealists who chose a path of impoverished outsiders in order to pursue their experimentation, they had faith in the commercial potential of their work. Indeed, this was the thing that linked them together, more than stylistic approach. In the beginning they took a critical drubbing, but later on their began to find their markets, thanks in large part to their dealer, Durand-Ruel, who introduced them to more adventurous and speculative Russian and American collectors. Sisley died in poverty, but it may have been due more to his own character, but others, such as Renoir, Monet, and the post-impressionist Cezanne did achieve financial security through their art.
(As a side note, my wife and I were friends with Renoir’s son, the film director Jean Renoir, and his wife Didot, and visited them at their charming French Provincial-style house in Los Angeles. You can only imagine the feast that was hanging on their walls. I enjoy going to the L.A. Museum of Art and seeing Renoir pere’s painting of Jean as a boy, dressing in a hunting outfit. It tickles me that I actually knew the subject of an Impressionist painting.)
The real irony, I think, is that while numerous Impressionists found their way into the mainstream of fashion in their lifetimes, Impressionism itself became a kind of catch-all term for a lot of very bad art in ours. Much of it has little to do with the serious inquiries of the original Impressionists into light and optics, and instead has become about daubing and smearing that masks an inability to draw.
Forgive me, Jean, for taking up so much space here.
I tried again, but it kicked me off.
Hi John… just waking up here and have done a quick check to see if Akismet has inadvertently stepped in… but can’t see any comments back of house lurking around. I wonder what’s going on? I thought it was strange in your last comment too how the quote got dropped off. Did you use any symbols in the text? Like I notice here on Wordpress I can’t use those little sideway arrows around the grin word because it’s actually HTML [code] that means something else. I will look into it further as soon as I am properly awake. So sorry John. I'm onto it.
How about trying to re-submit in two maybe three bites? Maybe the text was too long. But then… I’m not known for my short responses here… hmmm… thinking thinking…
John… maybe email me the comment and I will try submitting from here. That way I can [hopefully] see in behind in the code to see what the problem might be.
Is anyone else having problems with posting comments here?
Ahhh… eureka! THERE it is! See above everyone for John’s comment.
There is however historical evidence of the not insignificant struggle they endured as a consequence of their having bucked the academic establishment as eluded to here by Robert Katz in The Impressionists Handbook – History of Impressionism.
“The respite offered by Durand-Ruel to the poorest of the Impressionists, Monet, Renoir, Pissarro, and Sisley (whose father’s business had collapsed in the war) had temporarily evaporated; sales had plummeted in the recession. Even Degas was in trouble after the death of his father had entailed the Degas estate. An auction of Impressionist work arranged by Renoir and held at the Hotel Drouot ended in farce and near riot. So derisory were the bids that the artists were forced to purchase many of their own works”
It couldn’t have been easy.
How interesting that you knew Jean Renoir! Seems inconceivable doesn’t it? But in reality… the age of impressionism was not all that long ago… and never really ended I guess. There are many artist today who still practice the ideals of Impressionism… albeit with varying degrees of success as you so rightly point out. LOL
But I am wondering who can really judge… art is art… it is in the eye of the beholder a personal form of creative expression and remains in a constant state of flux. Corot once said to Pissarro… “We don’t see in the same way… you see green and I see grey and silver.”
And Albert Wolff the art critic of the important daily Le Figaro once disparagingly remarked “the impression the Impressionists achieve is that of a cat walking on a piano keyboard or a monkey who might have got hold of a box of paints”
It’s all subjective. Some things never change. LOL
Indeed it is subjective. It was critic Louis LeRoy, BTW, who churlishly gave the movement its name, by riffing on the title of Monet’s Impression-Sunrise. He wrote: “Impression — I was certain of it. I was just telling myself that, since I was impressed, there had to be some impression in it … and what freedom, what ease of workmanship! Wallpaper in its embryonic state is more finished than that seascape.”
Interesting, isn’t it, that Katz refers to the “recession” as cutting into the early Impressionists’ sales. Sound familiar? The main point though is that the work was new and different. After at first being rejected by the establishment it required a coming together of forces to turn things around: the determination of the artists, unswerving loyalty of a dealer or dealers, a glimmer of attention and interest from some part of the marketplace, social and cultural trends. On the other hand, through the 20th century we saw an explosion of “-isms” one after another as dealers, critics, curators, academics, and collectors frantically leaped at the next new movement and rejected the “old” in their terror at possibly missing the boat.
Cubism springs to mind most pointedly as a manufacture of Picasso… specifically for the purpose of making his work more saleable to an ever more fickle marketplace. That knowledge blew me away… that a style… or perhaps even a [whole movement] could be created to change the face of the “industry” all in the name of a buck. But I guess it happens in all industries… not just art… and when money’s involved especially in tough times… people do tend to lose their head their heart (and their scruples) somewhat. Fashion may rhyme with passion… but ne’re the twain shall meet but via the exchange of cold hard cash it would seem.
Maybe we need to create an “ism” right now John… to haul us out of the current slump? [Where do we find a good ism when we need one?] Grin. Certainly now more than ever artists need to be casting around for a new more innovative approach to the marketplace.
I too thought it was interesting that Katz refers to the recession. I guess the state of the economy is going to figure largely in all commercial enterprise… and art is no different. I just wonder if art ever passes hands any more because it is beautiful or thought provoking or the collector simply can’t live without it… or whether collecting art is always purely a cold commercial calculation.
A recent post card auction here pointed precisely to the latter with good prices reached for (dare I say it) household names… whilst perhaps the better work executed by less collectable artists languished unbid on. It seems so cynical to me… and must leave artists with a sour taste knowing that this is the prime motivation of the market place. Ever the idealist… I know. LOL