JUST DO IT!!!

  So many artists worry that their work isn't good enough and it sometimes keeps them from painting at all.  Are you doing your work for yourself or others?  Whatever the case you should do it like nobody will ever see it but you.  Do what you're passionate about and others will see that passion.  Not everybody will like it but you will eventually find an audience.  Don't find a trend and ride it.  Be yourself and be original.  Nobody but you can paint like you can.  I know so many artist that don't do anything just because they can't please everybody.  What others see as good art may not be the case.  No matter how famous or good an artist is there is going to be somebody that wont like their work.  That's true with everything so don't try so hard to please everybody.  PLEASE YOURSELF.  There will be some that will like your work and some that wont.  

    I know art is a personal thing and it really stings when anybody says something negative about it.  One thing that has helped me is "a reaction is better than no reaction even if it's negative".  One of my favorite reactions I ever got from somebody about it was very negative.  They said my work looked like "luminescent vomit".  It was a negative comment but a passionate one.  They couldn't even stand in front of my work for more than a few moments.  They said it was too disturbing for them.  

  You should get to the point that you will quit taking commissions that you don't want to do.  I used to take any commission.  I got to the point I didn't even want to work on the personal things I enjoyed because it was taking time away from my deadlines that I didn't want to do.  If you're into painting dragons or mythological creatures don't do sailboats or barns unless you just desperately need the money because it will leave a bad taste in your mouth and a lot of times look dead to others because you hated doing it.

  Picasso said "Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up".  Do you remember when you were young sitting at the kitchen table drawing with your crayons just to be drawing?  Then the older you got people told you what was good and what wasn't and you accepted it.  You only enjoyed it when others gave it their approval at that point.  We were born artist and society convinced us we wasn't.

  Art is a very personal experience and no one should be able to dictate what you should or should not paint.  Paint like you are the last person on earth.

JUST DO IT!!!

  

2012

My apologies if this is all over the map. It's just some of my hopes and fears for the future.

2011 was gone in the blink of an eye.  I hope 2012 doesn't go that fast especially if it's the last year of our existence.  I don't really think that's the case.  I do hope things drastically change for the better.

  As we usher in another year I find myself in the usual predicament...am I going in the right direction with my art?  Do I want to change my style, even what medium I use?  Usually when I try this it's a major waste of time and I go back to what I was doing before.

  Isn't that what we do as artist?  Isn't that how we grow?  It sure doesn't feel like it most of the time.  It seems like 1% of experimentation is fruitful.  Is it worth it to try new things when the success rate is so low.  I guess it is...for some of us anyway, but how will we know if we don't try.

  We have to take that shot.  Where would we be if Picasso or Pollock hadn't?  My art doesn't look anything like theirs but they are some of my biggest inspiration.

  When I was younger it seemed like no matter what my mood was it only enhanced my work.  Anger made my work more powerful and dark.  Boredom made me more creative.  That's not the case anymore.  Now I can only seem to paint when I'm somewhat happy or content.  Part of my problem is the internet.  We didn't have it when I was younger.  When there was nothing else to do I either drew, read comic books, or watched TV and I didn't watch much because we only had 3 channels.  Star Trek reruns and Saturday morning cartoons were all I watched so not a lot of TV.  Now it's too easy when I get home from work to open up the laptop with the intention of being on 30 minutes or so then working on my art.  30 minutes turns in hours then I'm too tired to do anything else.  I guess my New Years resolution should have been more self control.

What if the Net or maybe even the Grid went down in 2012?  It would suck but it would release a lot of us from it's grip to pursue what we was meant for if there wasn't roving packs of maniacs trying to kill us.  I'm an information freak and the internet is just too convenient for me.  I used to go to the dictionary, encyclopedia, book store, or library, now I can do it even better without having to get out of bed.  Kind of cool but kind of sad.  

You've probably heard that everything has been done.  Surely not, but there really hasn't been anything that unique done with art in 50 or so years in my opinion.  Could that be a sign, an omen? Maybe the big change would be a new Renaissance of art, a new beginning among other things. I don't know, wishful thinking I guess.

Let's look to the future with hope instead of dread. Instead of looking at it negativity let's look at it with positivity.

What happened to the the Super Artist?

It doesn't seem that art or the artists producing it is near as popular as they used to be.  I mean we have famous artists these days that few have heard of but no superstar artists like there used to be.  Look back to the 50's when Picasso, Pollock, de Kooning, and many others were the famous artist, just as big as the movie stars of the time.  They appeared in Life Magazine and the front page of the newspapers, were mentioned on the evening news.  I even saw a clip of Salvador Dali on a game show.  

It was a time when almost everybody heard of these people.  Look at today's most well known artists.

The top living artists as of June 8th 2009

Jasper Johns

Bruce Nauman, Lucian Freud, Richard Serra, David Hockney, Cy Twombly, Cindy Sherman, Jeff Koons, Tracy Emin, and Damien Hirst

Unfortunately Lucian Freud died since this list was compiled.  I bet if you ask the average non-artist who any of these people are they wouldn't have any idea yet 50 or 60 years ago most people would probably know who the top three were of that time.  Try it.  Ask random people who Jasper Johns is.

You hear even less about pieces of art than you do about the artist themselves.  The only times you seem to hear about a painting by people that aren't into art is when someone does a highly controversial piece.  I like a good controversial work of art but not when it's done just for the sake of getting attention.  It should say something more than just "look at me".  Where are today's Guernicas, the Screams, and Starry Nights?

With the internet you would think that art would be even more popular but it's not.  Is the information super highway helping art, distracting from it, or not having any effect at all?  I'm able to connect with other artists all over the world that I wouldn't have been able to many years ago but does the average person not think about art as much?  It seems that way.

Maybe I'm wrong about this.  I live in a small town and cultural dead zone.  Let me know if I'm wrong.