May I Borrow Your Crystal Ball?

Had a bit of a scare this week...

As some of you know, I teach microbiology part-time at a local community college. When the semester started this past Monday, I had only six students enrolled in my class. That's not very many, and I know the college folks were seriously considering transferring the six to the the morning class, taught by another instructor. And I'd be unemployed for the rest of the year.

However, all six students work full-time during the day and were unable to switch. Since micro is the last course these guys need to continue on into nursing school, simply canceling the class would have screwed them up majorly. So the class will continue on, and I'll be receiving a paycheck for the rest of the year, barring complications on my part.

But the scare brought to mind why I promised myself, years ago, that I'd never again have only one financial lifeline. It's so easy to have that lifeline cut for any number of reasons, or for no reason at all. I'd love to have a Plan B -- some kind of income-generating enterprise to supplement the teaching position.

Frankly, other than selling paintings, I don't have a Plan B, and art sales are definitely suffering during these horrid economic times (which could get worse in the days ahead according to some economists).

The only thing I can do at this point is to go ahead and make paintings that will be put up for sale...some day. I don't know if this recession will end in my lifetime -- I hope so, but who knows?

In any case, I still plan to paint landscapes that I want to keep -- but sell them if/when the right opportunity comes. Not just any opportunity, but the right one. I won't be so easy-going in the future, even if it costs me sales. I just can't invest large quantities of time or money, or have pieces hanging in a gallery with no financial commitment on the part of the gallery owner, while I try to figure out how to survive.

Sometimes I really wish I could look into the future. Maybe I could then figure out where to go with things. But I guess all I can do is my paint my best artwork possible and hope enough people (who are surviving the recession) will like the paintings, too.

Into the Sunset

The time had come to make one of those decisions that changes one's life. They're always hard and sometimes sad, but necessary.

I decided it was time to give up the dream of making art as a business.

The art business never did make enough money for us to live on; in fact, we lost a LOT of money over the years. A sale here and a sale there just doesn't do it. After a couple of decades (literally), with one of those decades being full-time as an artist during this never-ending economic depression, it's time to stop the money leak. I've reached my "stop-loss": the gambler's term for the maximun amount one is willing to lose in the pursuit of riches.

I've gotten a lot of advice over the years from artists who say they're surviving just fine, although their income may have gone down somewhat over these last few years. Some of the advice was conflicting: "Keep your prices low until you get better established" vs. "You really otta double your prices."

In fact, I've taken a lot of the advice I've gotten, and ya know what? NONE of it made any difference, one way or the other!

The recession (or depression, as I call it) affected many artists badly; for me, however, sales dropped even before the housing bust. I saw sales decline when gasoline prices rose in the mid-2000's, supposedly because of the worldwide demand for oil, especially from emerging economies such as China's, and from every storm that blew through the Gulf of Mexico. It cost more for people to get around, so they stopped traveling to art shows or galleries. Those who still drove their cars just weren't buying.

On top of that, the galleries I used to be in had their own ideas about what I should paint -- paint BIG (something I never felt I was good at), and paint Tuscany scenes (Gallery A) or local desert scenes (Gallery B). There were a few sales, but now we have closets stuffed with large paintings. And no interested galleries.

In addition, buyers in California and Arizona -- even in the art mecca of Scottsdale -- want non-Southwest, impressionistic/expressionistic/abstract works that match the sofa or "tie the room together." In fact, I'm still amazed at how many people re-decorate their homes and save the art-buying for last. It's easier to switch out paint and furniture color than it is to find art that's truly meaningful to the buyer, regardless of the colors in the art. But then, maybe that just demonstrates the low priority people place on art.

I'm left with quite a mixture of emotions: sadness, anger, bitterness, disappointment, frustration. I know I can always re-enter the art market if/when things change. But I'm not counting on anything like that happening in my lifetime. For now, painting is a hobby that I'll work at when I can. I'll take my time, work when the mood strikes me, and produce works that are as close to perfect as I can make them, given the skills I have at that time. If I happen to sell any paintings, great; if not, well, the pieces will look wonderful on our own walls.

Meanwhile, I'm still a part-time instructor at the local community college, and I've applied for a full-time biology instructor position that recently opened. And I'm looking for a Plan C in case the college loses the funds to pay my wages and I become unemployed. Plan A (the art business) is finished.

So for now, I'm heading off into the sunset. If you happen to be one of my buyers, I say: thanks so much for fueling the dream. But the paint brushes and supplies have been put aside for now, and I'll revise my Website (which I still plan to keep online) to become a portfolio of my favorite paintings rather than a selling site.

Yo voy a Dios.

Flickering Flames

The Wiffee and I are fans of the CBS program, Sunday Morning. On today's program, they featured a story about Herb Albert (of Tijuana Brass fame) and his wiffee, singer Lani Hall.

They live on six acres in Malibu, CA, overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Herb paints, sculpts, suppports music programs (as in the Harlem School of the Arts, or whatever the exact name is) and pretty much does whatever he wants. Hey -- they can afford it! He and Lani recorded an album together and will soon be touring the country in concert.

In many ways, Herb's life is quite similar to the life I envisioned when I began dreaming of an art career -- originally as a fine-arts photographer, then as a full-time painter. I never figured on achieving the fame or wealth that Herb has, but I thought we'd be able to live on my modest income and to reside wherever we wanted to -- not in Malibu, necessarily, but perhaps in the hi desert of CA or the Sonoran desert of southern AZ. (Well, OK, we do live in the CA hi desert, but this is hardly our dream home!)

That dream has been rapidly fading or, should I say, that flame is flickering madly, in danger of going out.

For years, I attended grad school, doing experients in microbiology that left me little time for anything else. Then I entered the working world where I worked full-time, commuted for hours on California's freeways, and worked on my art as much as possible. In between jobs, I worked full-time on art: days, nights, weekends, holidays. Then, in the last ten years, I considered my full-time job to be: professional artist, with the same hours I worked as the "between-jobs" artist.

And ya know -- I'm tired!

Sales have been mixed, but over the last few years during the recession, sales have been very low. I can't even speculate on when, or if, things will ever go back to "normal" -- whatever that is. Some of the other landscape artists I admire are struggling, too.

Now, mind you -- surviving, or even thriving -- financially as an artist is certainly possible. I know artists in that category, too. But most of their artwork has a noticable contemporary twist: VERY colorful, impressionistic/expressionistic and often not showing the grand views that I love. One rarely finds the type of art I enjoy at art festivals.

Even supposedly traditional art havens like Santa Fe and Scottsdale feature little of this style of painting. I must be part of a dinosaur generation that's becoming extinct.

I do, on occasion, see/hear rumors that the avant garde styles are becoming tiresome with buyers and that realism is making a comeback. Maybe so -- but not in MY part of the world, it ain't!

But we'll see. I haven't given up on the dream just yet. But the flame keeps flickering in the dusty winds of the hi desert.

Herb Albert -- my hat's off to you.

Beginning the New Year

So far: I have a commission to finish, a to-be-donated piece to finish, and THREE classes to prepare for so I can begin teaching them in less than two weeks! I mentioned in previous posts I'll be instructing microbiology and zoology -- both lectures and labs for each -- but I was recently asked to teach the lab for a biology class for non-bio majors. Wow -- I'll be busy, and not with art!

Well, maybe I'll be a little busy with art.

I've been working days, nights and weekends for years, and frankly, I'm tired! I know I'll busy with teaching and squeezing in art; yet, I know I MUST find time for myself -- just to relax, play, do things that are not so much like work. I can't keep up this pace for the rest of my life -- or my life isn't going to last as long as it should.

So -- I'm trying to pace myself and realize I just can't do it all. I'll have to sacrifice some of those responsibilities so that I can be better at the things I WILL be doing.

And you know, after all these years -- that's easier said than done...

Deviant

Yes, it's true: I'm a deviant!

That's what they call members of deviantArt.com. And I'm one of them.

I haven't had the opportunity to explore this site in detail, but artists post examples of their work which are all "collected" together on page after page of...well, quite a variety of work and artists from all over the world.

In a sense, I don't really fit there: classical/traditional artists (like me) are few and far between on deviantArt. There's photography, digital art and drawings and paintings, but the results lean toward the fantastic and "manga/anime," a cartoonish style that I haven't figured out yet. If members turn the mature content filter "off," many nudes and sexual images (especially lesbian encounters, for some reason) appear among all of the different styles and media types. Some of the language, in addition to the images, are not suitable for children, IMO.

I'm sure deviantArt is full of artists who are simply looking for a place to display their art. But if I understand right, once an artist posts an image, other people can order copies of the image as prints, T-shirts and other objects. DeviantArt and the artist then split the proceeds. This is where the business part of it comes in.

At this time, I don't know if this will be a venue that will be helpful to me. But as time goes along, I hope to get a better idea of what would work for me and, perhaps, make images that are unlike the traditional landscapes I make now and try 'em out on deviantArt.

Hmmm...I wonder if there is such a thing as anime cactus. =)

Thoughts of Days to Come

Here I am, on the computer, feeling just a little guilty because I'm not painting.

Just a LITTLE guilty. I figure I'm on vacation, and working on the computer is the only thing I'm doing right now.

I applied for unemployment a few weeks ago, and I heard this week I'll begin receiving benefits since I was, in a sense, laid-off from my part-time teaching position at the community college.

I'm done painting for the art shows that are coming up next month. A few pieces still need to be framed; however, I've got more paintings than frames these days, and I can't afford to buy more right now. In a few cases, I'll pull paintings from some frames and use those frames on other, newer work. Some artworks were done on edge-wrapped canvases; thus, they don't need frames. And one of the show organizers said I could put small paintings on panels (1/8" thick) into clear plastic envelopes and display them as though they were unframed prints.

So I should be OK. I've been working hard seven days a week for most of the days and almost all of the nights. I'm tired. I need down time.

I'll have to wait until next month to find out if the college will want me to teach again starting in January 2011. We don't have many job openings here in this mostly-rural desert town, so if I don't teach again, I'll have to try and find a way to sell art without depending on expensive shows. The Internet to the rescue?

Finally, I'll want to see if there truly is a market for the style and subject matter I prefer to paint. If not, I'll have to come up with something else -- or quit making art to sell. It would be art for personal enjoyment.

We'll see. Interesting times ahead.

Potboilers

An artist friend sometimes makes references to "potboilers," which he defines thusly: "pictures painted with sales as their motive, to keep something in the artist's soup pot... "

I think all artists paint potboilers; in fact, some well-known artists produce nothing BUT potboilers, essentially making the same artwork over and over and over again ad infinitum because they know they will sell.

Other artists, myself included, prefer to branch out a little more than that, perhaps to our detriment, professionally speaking. But I do have a few potboilers of my own.



These are scenes I've painted a number of times, albeit in different sizes and atmospheric conditions. I even once painted the piece on the left as it appears by moonlight.

The scenes are in Joshua Tree National Park. These images tend to be well-received, especially if they are "suitcase-sized" -- small enough for a visitor to pack into a suitcase to carry home, wherever that is. In this case, both paintings are 8" x 10"/20cm x 25cm, and if they're unframed, they could easily be packed and carried away.

I painted these views from pictures I took in the early 1980s. These sites look a little different today:



The spot in the painting on the left is now a fenced planter surrounded by a parking lot. The largest of the Joshua trees has long since fallen over (they do that, unfortunately), and trash dumpsters are now between the clump and the rocks.

I haven't had time to go back and locate the other scene, but a paved road now exists in that area, and I'm sure it also looks different today.

In any case, scenes like these seem to speak to Joshua tree lovers, and as long as I keep sizes and prices reasonable, I normally can hope these potboilers will sell. We'll see: they'll be in the September show at the Twentynine Palms Art Gallery.

Needin' a Break

I belong to a number of online forums for artists. One of these leans toward artists who do most/all of their selling at outdoor art shows.

Several times on this particular forum, I've expressed dismay at how the art business in general is going downhill, but especially in this economy. Others have since joined in, but this post sounds very much like some I wrote a few years ago:


I am 50+ and due to the art SELLING business I feel like an old old 50+. I never thought I would be making less money with 2 refined mediums then I did with my crude art 30 years ago.

For the first time in many years, I am worried about paying for booth fees ... Like most artists, I am a survivor and an optimist. The problem is I am not sure any more if I will survive and pessimism has started to creep into my soul. For the first time, I do not think our industry will bounce back when the economy gets better. I just don't see people buying "situms" and "wall pretties" with any sort of enthusiasm again even when they have money.


My last art show effort was early in 2007. After that, it became obvious I was essentially flushing my money down the toilet. (In case you never heard, we artists rent our spaces at $200-600 or more for the duration of the show). And at the last outdoor show, I didn't sell a thing. I lost the entire bundle.

For a variety of reasons, I think I need a serious break from art. Not that I want to quit art, but I do need to get away from it for a while.

I had planned on doing that this summer, but I was offered two separate one-man shows in September. So I've been trying to make enough paintings to fill both shows, but it's been tough to face those blank canvases. I'm burned out these days -- I'm sure it hasn't helped that I've been painting full-time for almost ten years, and the sales, slow in the beginning (as I'd expect in any new business), have dwindled to almost zero.

A break will be a good thing -- at least I hope so. I did offer to make some bibically-themed paintings for our church, and I still want to do that. But I won't put myself under pressure to crank out paintings any more because a show is coming up and I've just GOTTA work myself into the ground to get ready. Enough!

I expect, too, that I'll still produce paintings, but at a much slower and comfortable rate. No more working far into the night, all day, weekends and holidays -- which is how it's been for me while in, and since, grad school, which I finished in 1986, for cryin' out loud!

Most importantly, I want to improve my quality and work at doing figurative work, which is definitely a weak area in my background.

Here's to better art -- and art buyers. Someday.

Sometimes It Just Doesn't Work

Today I pulled all of my paintings out of the lone gallery I appeared in. People in this area seem to want mostly red (the hue that is known as "ReallyReally Red"!) and, although buyers seem to respond positively to my paintings, they're not buying them. I guess for that reason, the gallery owner stashed my works in a back room, out of sight of gallery visitors, and "replaced" me on the walls with another artist's paintings.

Well, that's understandable, I suppose. If an artist isn't selling in a gallery, the owner needs to move that artist out and find another whose work does sell. But it's frustrating when all of the hopes from the last two years were flushed down the toilet. The buyers' tastes in this area are also, well, nonexistent. I've been advised to head further east, maybe to Texas, or even as far as the East Coast.

What can I say? I'm angry with the art world right now, and I'm not sure what to do next. For now, I'll focus on doing what I really want to do. Maybe some day, I'll put them up for sale. But I'll definitely not narrow the focus to one specific region, as I did with the works that were in the gallery.

Sometimes it just doesn't work. And when it doesn't, it costs a lot of time, materials and sanity.

Meanwhile, here: have some red flowers. The high desert is still in bloom.

Field Trip

I decided to take a little time and make a "field trip" to El Paseo in Palm Desert, CA. This street is the equivalent of Rodeo Drive in Beverly Hills and features many different boutiques, restaurants and -- most importantly -- art galleries. (The gallery I'm in is located on El Paseo).

First, I stopped by the gallery I have paintings in to see how the owner is preparing for Thursday Art Walk (tonight), the last of the season. I was especially curious to see if he had rehung any of my work which, as of Valentine's Day, was mostly stashed away in a back room. Yesterday, only ONE painting was out -- and it wasn't hanging but was set on the floor leaning against a wall. In the back of the gallery.

It's obvious that people who come into this gallery aren't that interested in what I paint; otherwise, my work would have had its former places of honor in the front window and on the walls toward the front. Besides that, I asked if there was any interest in the last paintings I brought in, and he said no.

Maybe I'm not in the right gallery, since everything else the owner has in there is more contemporary and VERY colorful compared to MY stuff. I mentioned I might remove the excess paintings from his backroom during the summer, but now I'm leaning toward pulling out altogether.

But where to go after that? I don't know. Most of the field trip was to see how the other galleries are doing, what they've been selling (if anything) and if I'd find a "good fit" somewhere else.

Well, most of the art I saw was contemporary, whether or not the paintings had recognizable subjects. Most were blindingly colorful -- pure reds and other warm, almost fluorescent colors. Apparently, the buyers have been people from extreme winter states like Minnesota and the Dakotas and -- especially -- from the plains provences of Canada. The Canadian dollar has strengthened considerably as the US experienced monetary problems, and people who spend so much time in a long-lasting season of gray, featureless winter want COLOR in their homes and offices. Traditional realism isn't about zonking color. So what's an artzy one to do?

Only two galleries had works that made me feel like I might fit in. One is headquartered in Carmel, and they seem to like my work, but I'm not pricey enough for them. (Understandable -- they pay a lot of rent for their locations!) The other gallery has a long list of artists who want to get in, and besides -- their work was rather colorful, too.

Conclusion: maybe this area just isn't my market. I may have to go further east -- maybe all the way to the East Coast -- to find buyers. Other classical painters have told me the East seems to be populated by art lovers who are more sophisticated in their taste than the West Coast, where people want to be cutting edge and trendy.

How does an impoverished artist fight a situation like that?

Plodding Along

One nice thing about knowing I'll be getting a paycheck next week: I'm running low on art supplies, and I'll need to buy more!

Teaching aside, I'm continuing to make art as time (and awakeness) permit.

I've been in touch with a number of artists I know who work in a traditional/classical style, as I do. We're all singing the same tune: art sales are down. We're not entering as many art shows -- too much money up front at a time when the risk is simply too high. Galleries aren't selling well, either.

So we're all painting and trying to survive as best we can. The other artists congratulated me on getting the teaching job, especially during this economy. I'd have to agree -- it could be much worse.

And I'll keep plodding along, painting new subjects and -- more than likely -- storing the newer works until money and art are changing hands again. I'm sure it will -- someday.

Any Eccentric Millionaires Out There?

The "part time" teaching job has sure cut into my art-making time! I'm sure anyone with a teaching background can tell you about the all of the extra stuff teachers have to do on their own time -- and I'm finding it's true even at the community college level.

Not that I haven't been involved in art-related activities -- I posted a question on one of the online forums I belong to about whether or not classical/tradition realism has much of a market in this country. I know the economy has been bad, but some artists continue to do very well. Yet, the gallery I'm in hasn't sold anything of mine since April, 2009 -- almost a year!

That is NOT a confidence builder!

So I'll continue to bide my time, painting when I can but looking to see what I need to do to make my paintings irresistable to buyers. So far, my thoughts are to keep painting in a classical manner but not restrict myself to desert painting -- maybe the market for desert/Southwest subjects isn't there anymore.

I have ideas for what I want to paint -- now I just need the time to do them.

I think I need an eccentric millionaire to leave us a bundle of money so we can pursure the lives we want without the financial pressure to produce-produce-produce and sell-sell-sell.

Anyone out there know any eccentric millionaires?

A Sale and a No-Sale

Funny -- the ACEO on the left sold this week on eBay. But not the ACEO on the right.

I wonder why. True -- they're not identical, but they are similar.

I think I need a marketing research firm to help me figure out collectors' buying patterns!

The Money Circle

Back in the mid-1970's, I worked for a camera company as a shipping/receiving clerk. Like most companies, this place had its good and bad points. So after a while, I was ready to move on.

But to what? I had no other tangible job skills, I hadn't finished college (where I was majoring in art), and any personnel manager I talked with felt I needed to have more goals in my life (not to mention more employable skills). Plus, I wasn't necessarily good at marketing myself.

All this lit a fire within me that lasted for years. I made arrangements to return to college (leaving my job with the camera company), get a degree in whatever sounded practical that would also interest me, and simply have more options when I re-entered the work force on a career level.

I started in ornamental horticulture but quickly changed to microbiology, medical technology option. This curriculum would have prepared me as much as possible to enter an internship to train as a medical technologist, the folks in clinical labs who run the tests on patient specimens, and then take various state board exams to receive a license.

I got as far as being admitted to the one-year training program at the City of Hope in Duarte, CA. That's when plans changed. It was either because of the overwhelming stress of trying to learn and do so much in so little time, or the fact that I needed dental work done and was taking prescription pain killers as a result.

The point is: I took a multiple-choice written exam and made some really dumb errors, thus failing the test. They allowed me to re-take it, and I tried to be as careful as possible, even to the point of working out math problems in the margins -- but then circling the wrong letter on the test. More dumb stuff -- and I was dismissed from the internship.

Whichever the cause, that was the first time I ever truly bombed out on anything important in my life -- an event I never entirely recovered from. I entered grad school and received a masters degree in microbiology. But the funny thing about science: a masters is not a help but a hindrance. I was overqualified to do what bachelors degrees people do, but not advanced enough to do Ph.D. work. In most fields, a masters degree is considered worthwhile. In the natural sciences, it puts you at a disadvantage.

None of the jobs I found in reserach were actually microbiology-related, although I had skills that worked in other fields (i.e., electron microscopy). Most of those jobs were also grant-funded, which means you can be laid-off if the grant isn't renewed. Which I often was.

So in 1991 I left science altogether, we moved to Colorado Springs and I took a position in a Christian ministry answering letters and sending out resources that I felt could help our constituents deal with their issues. As mentioned in a previous post, I have writing skills, so in some ways, this job was a good fit. Sort of a mix of customer service and light-weight counselor, mostly with teen girls.

The down side: I'm not as conservative as many of the people who were around me. Of the nine years I worked there, I spent at least seven of them trying to get out. The stress and pressure to conform to certain religious expectations and behavior was quite damaging, and to this day I have a difficult time relating to church or Christians.

After deaths in each of our families, we returned to California in late 2000 with the idea that my wife would find a local job and I would paint (and sell) full time. It seemed to be working at first, but wouldn't you know it: the economy started slowing down, and so did the art sales.

And here we are today, where I feel like I've gone a terribly frustrating full circle: no real employable skills (assuming I could even find a job around here); I've been out of the lab for 18 years and am not only rusty, I'm behind the times. And I'm still not sure I know how to sell myself, anyway.

For most artists I know (maybe all -- some of them may be lying!), sales are down or nonexistant. Some artists are speculating art business methodologies that worked in the past may not work anymore -- that buyers' attitudes have changed. Don't know about that -- history shows alternating cycles of parsimony and wanton materialism.

It all certainly puts me in a position where I have to decide what to do next -- and fast. I know it isn't just me -- but that doesn't affect the fullness of my pocketbook. I've been painting smaller lately: rather than lowering prices (which wouldn't be fair to my previous customers), I'm making paintings that I can offer for less.

BUT: do I need to make more changes? Are there enough people out there who want the things that I paint? More decorative? More colorful? More abstract/impressionistic/whatever?

The Money Circle has been a long-lasting, maddening, frustrating and sad situation. I hope I find out what I need to do soon -- before it's too late.

Confuser Day

No working on art today.

WHAT??!? How can this be???

Well, I picked up on a comment from another blogger and moderator for an online forum for artists: she said something about Tuesday being "computer day." And I thought (yes, I do think every so often): that's a great idea. I would still check e-mail, forums and other stuff every day, but I really could use extended periods of time to do the more involved items, such as updating the Website (http://www.southwestspaces.com), organizing and backing up files and things that, if I crammed them in between brush strokes, might not get done right , if at all.

By the way, I like to call this machine a "confuser." Sometimes that label fits better. You know I'm right about that, don't you?

The art business is definitely about more than just making art!