{"id":15342,"date":"2013-05-17T09:31:00","date_gmt":"2013-05-17T13:31:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/hameblog\/2013\/05\/17\/show-and-sell\/"},"modified":"2025-09-12T07:50:12","modified_gmt":"2025-09-12T10:50:12","slug":"show-and-sell","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/2013\/05\/17\/show-and-sell\/","title":{"rendered":"Show and Sell"},"content":{"rendered":"
I’m finally ready for the Latheron Art Show. This job kept getting relegated to the background, partly because I was busy, partly because I had no idea what to make: What constitutes “art”<\/em>?<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I bought a couple of teeny frames when I was in London, and these proved to be perfect for the kind of drawing I do.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
But I didn’t buy enough.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
This left me with two larger frames, and a conundrum: I don’t draw big. I just don’t. Yes, we should stretch our boundaries, and after enjoying the life drawing class’s exhibition<\/a> at our library’s gallery, I do feel compelled to experiment in a class like that — but not when I have work to produce to a deadline!<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I also wanted the work I’m showing to reflect what I like to do, what I’m good at, rather than try to do “proper art” (I think this must plague all comics artists). Well, I’ll give myself a 50% on that one, because, stuck for subjects and constantly coming back to “but this is an art show”, along with the oversized frames I had to work with, I caved and tried to do “serious” representational art.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
The problem is, like I said in the last post, I haven’t put in the time to be any good at that.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
So I did this landscape of a local scene:<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

…but I find it awfully muddy, ’cause I don’t know how to do washes with watercolour — which wasn’t helped by this being on Bristol board, which starts to decompose when the surface gets too wet.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I can draw, but painting is something different. I’m getting better at doing it on a small scale, but that’s still in the “colouring in” range. Actually painting across a large space magnifies all the things I don’t know. I am just doing this show for fun, but I still didn’t want to bring work that’s…<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n

Okay, this part may sound awful, but I’m going in… At these local shows, yes, there is some amazing work that’s on par with anything, anywhere — like the work of the woman who leads the life drawing class, Kitty Watt<\/a>. I have two of her prints and think she’s wonderful.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
There’s some okay work in the middle, but most of the art clusters around the high and the low ends, and the low-end stuff can be really, really bad. It’s usually in oil, too. Why do people jump straight to oil, which must be the hardest material to work with? It’s like an X-ray that reveals all your technical weaknesses and reduces your effort to something that looks like the bottom of a bird-cage.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I know there’s a movement called “naive art”, which — I don’t know if it’s condescending or compassionate, but it features work by unschooled adult artists whose work usually has no sense of proportion or craft, and often looks like it was done by a child. So to give the benefit of the doubt, there’s a lot of naive art at these shows. (“Oh sweet Lord, what happened to your dog?!”)<\/em><\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
So I didn’t want to add to that, or fall into that hole of reaching too far with media I’m not equal to.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I’d done two “my-style” things I liked, but all the other cartoony ideas that came to me just seemed like — I dunno, I couldn’t imagine what they had to do with anything or why anyone would buy them. (It’s the old Writer’s Block: imagining what other people will think or want can stop you dead in your tracks.) Like this demon bartender: fun, but it felt a little glib and “So what?”<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

In the end, I experimented with painting the entrance to the Camster Cairns (a nearby paleolithic burial site) and a mackerel (I find fish beautiful). I enjoyed the mackerel much more; I guess I like having a subject, rather than just filling in a lot of details.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n

<\/a><\/div>\n<\/p>\n

So there we are; I’m ready! I’m to drop them off this weekend (during a one-hour<\/em> window, strangely), then the show is next weekend.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Ugh, now I have to decide what to charge for these. I’m wide open to suggestions.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
In related news, I’ve been asked to attend a book fair in October — the same one that made me decide I was quitting fairs — and to make more books for a local museum’s shop. On both counts, it’s wonder to be asked and I’m grateful, but I have trouble imagining that either of them will be worth it in terms of return on investment. I think I’m finished with producing commodity work.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
Like I’ve been saying, I’m in a place where I don’t need the (trace amounts of) money, and saying yes to these things keeps me from exploring other stuff I’m more interested in.<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
I guess that’s decided then: I’ll say no. I just have this dread fear of not being a good guy, not being liked. (Canadian children are taken away to training camps to have these virtues drummed into them.)<\/div>\n<\/p>\n
<\/div><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I’m finally ready for the Latheron Art Show. This job kept getting relegated to the background, partly because I was busy, partly because I had no idea what to make: What constitutes “art”? I bought a couple of teeny frames when I was in London, and these proved to be perfect for the kind of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15342","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15342"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15342\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15342"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15342"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hame.ink\/blether\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15342"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}