Selling

During a recent exhibition, in a restaurant, I sold two paintings. One was marked NFS (not for sale). This illustrates a couple of things: one, a good restaurant where people are sitting around and enjoying themselves for an hour or two is not a bad place to show and two, I needed the money more than I needed a favorite painting of my wife.

My strategy these days is to have any painting I sell digitally scanned before I hand it over. I am quite happy with this option. I'm less happy with the fact that I paid a professional photographer years ago to photograph many of my paintings (that are now sold and lost -to me) and the resulting images are of such a low quality/resolution that they are useless to print anything besides a postcard, which by the way, no one buys anymore...

He's now of course out of business thanks to digital photography.

It is not that the technology wasn't available at the time; he did one set of "four by five transparencies" for me that are excellent. But this was apparently too troublesome and, he argued "overkill" and therefore talked me down to a larger (smaller) format slide.

I saw the proprietor of the restaurant recently. She told me a customer was interested in another painting marked NFS but informed me that she had told him he was out of luck, it was a (another) painting of my wife... Is she crazy? A month of mortgage is lost to sentimentality.

Blogging

Over half of the people who have stopped by this blog page were using Firefox. Mac's Safari comes in second at 19%... Internet explorer, once the only dog in the woods sniffs around a distant third. Chrome is neck and neck with IE. That's right. Mobile Safari gives Mac another boost with 4%. Never heard of Mobile Safari. But then, there are a lot of things I have never heard of. Tons of popular technologies I have no experience with what-so-ever.

This free blog for instance technically blows my mind. Did you know I have had 16 page views from Russia? Didn't think so. I didn't either until I found a tab marked "stats" on my internal behind the scenes blogger instrument panel!

That's not all. I have more intriguing facts: The browsering system Opera came in with one percent of my viewing audience. I'm vaguely familiar with that name. Vaguely. Like, not really. But how about you? Have you heard of the NS8 browser? Because TWO people from somewhere on this planet surfed my turf with NS8. They might have been from Qatar. Three of my worldly web-surfers were. Or Germany, France, Australia...Who knows? Perhaps you're pretty worldly and you whisper to yourself, "Oh yeah, I'm familiar with NS8..." Well, how about Konqueror or SeaMonkey? Because those engines are bringing eyes and minds to the light, Searching for Sparks also. Chances are they didn't stay long. I know my attention span is pretty short these virtual days.

These are the days of the wild cyber frontier. Unlimited possibilities and space for everyone. The frightened and greasy Dark Lords of Infinite Economic Growth haven't spoiled this apple yet. Rejoice.

Whoever you are, from where ever you hail, huge, galactic, virtual, curious and spirited greetings to you. Really. And thanks to the Googles of minds and bodies that make this technical playground available to me. For free.

Thomas Kinkade

The painter of light.
Really light.
54 years old.
How could he be so big and so bad so quickly?
Norman Rockwell he was not.
His alcoholic tendencies almost lend some empathy. Curiosity.
Nah.

Tempus Fugit, Memento Mori

A painting a day. Tha'd be great. Hell, a painting a week would add up. Twelve new paintings a year. That's not stellar but it would still be an exhibition. "Wished he'd been more prolific." That might possibly be my epitaph. At least a part of it.

Bittersweet: Twenty-four hours and things to do. Things we want to do, things we have to do, things we oughta do. When you're a child there are things you cannot do because you are not yet an adult. Before you know it there are things you can't do because you are no longer young. And then there's the being dead thing. That pretty much puts the brakes on everything.

Right now I have to stop doing this and do something else. I won't say what. And then I have to go some where. When I return many hours will have passed and I can promise the world one thing: I will not have created another painting.

The Salesman

I don't know how it is with others, but there are times when I am working and that is all I have time for. Color, composition, value, contrast, themes and what size canvas I should use are all I care to think about.  During these periods the salesman is dormant. I am not looking for the next place to exhibit or attempting to contact influential persons. I am experiencing my craft and nothing else matters. Of course the day to day demands of modern life must be met but aside from that I am only interested in how to most effectively express myself in a two-dimensional manner. These are really the great times. This is after all the concrete act.

Other times, for whatever reason, I am unable to work at the easel as much as I would like so I attempt to spend my time wisely. I have something that needs selling and that something is myself.  I'm not necessarily looking to find a buyer for a painting. I'm looking for an audience. I'm looking for galleries that might be receptive to my work. I research contemporary painters and see what other people are doing. This depresses me.  I either find successful painters whose work I can't stomach or I see really impressive images that make me envious. Envious of style or technique or unique and thoughtful content.

Still I have these wares I need to hawk. I've put too much time and energy into this thing I call myself to call it quits. What else am I going to do: competitive topiary?

Would I go so far as to take out free ads in major US cities on Craigslist? Advertise myself as a painter searching for his own modern Guggenheim relationship, complete with painting samples and links to a website offering prints of my work? Become frustrated with Craigslist's ability to limit my ad to one city at a time unless I completely rewrite the ad and use different images each time because they're apparently on to me and my desperate plan?

Would I begin writing a blog?