Tuesday, December 05, 2006

Art and Fear and Money

I have my graduating students read the book "Art & Fear by David Bayles,Ted Orland. It addresses the importance to making art and not stopping, and the problems with getting stuck with not being able to continue on. Essentially an artist's good work is the sum of all his work both good and not so good. I find I am not afraid to paint but I am often afraid of it not being good enough. I have to work to get past that. Otherwise I would stop painting. When I can let go of this I do better work This forum of the the blogspot for presenting ongoing work is a valuable venue to keep artists painting. Afterall, if an artist keeps painting there is a chance for improvement. Not painting allows no chance for improvement. This is somewhat like the lottery, "you have to play to win." This brings me to money and art. All artists starting out do well to keep prices reasonable and raise them as time goes by. I think some artists make their prices too low. I believe price seems to have something to do with the inherent value of the piece and the degree of professionalism brought to the work by the artist. In other words the time spent on less successful paintings has value to the process of painting and the development of the artist. Comment invited.

1 comment:

Jeanne Melberg said...

Hi Linda,
I like your work and the advice you provide on your site. I recently read "The Artist's Way" and it motivated me to seriously start improving my painting and setting actual artistic goals for myself. My fear of painting actually lead me to become a lawyer of all things--and I really want to change my path! I'm going to pick up the books you recommended. Any further recommendations are welcome!