Work, think, plan then chill out

I’m scrabbling once again to finish artwork for an event. Always a last minute rush. I don’t actually need to take one of my almost done pieces, but this is a workshop for makers on selling and these new ones are for submitting to an art fair selection panel so I want to have some confidence about how I determine their price.

Oh, I’ve spent months researching this the way you’re told to - trying to find someone who makes similar things with similar materials who are at the same stage of their career. As if that last one is obvious. Oh, and the number of sites which have no prices anyway. I’m left scratching my head at the gap between Etsy and Saatchi and wondering where I fit. Both sites have ludicrously (to me) priced paper mache works and Etsy has some insultingly cheap stuff for work that is excellent and should be priced much higher. But what do I know?

For makers and sculptors, it seems no one else really does either. Painters have it easier; there is generally a sort of price per square inch formula you can apply. Ask around. What would you expect to pay for x piece of work? Assuming the work is in a gallery (and everyone thinks that’s what you’re aiming for), the prices suggested get outrageous very quickly.

Art is a tricky money and life subject. It’s not seen as a job by many, heck it’s rarely taught in a business sense to art students. And income? People expect to be paid at least minimum wage for ‘real’ work but gasp at paying for a piece of artwork (which is someone’s profession) that works out at half that rate. Or less.

But there’s this canyon where those who cheerfully tell you that anything is possible with your career are standing on one side waving flags and saying ‘go for it’ and ‘don’t undersell’, and the doom and gloom lot are pitching rocks down at you from the other side, convinced that only very lucky and rare people make a living in art and it’s really, really – no really – hard to do. Some of those rock throwers are artists and makers themselves! Somewhere amongst the rubble, the newer artist must sift and sort, decide whether or not to have a bash at taking it seriously, make a decision and hope they don’t break an ankle when they snag a foot in something hidden.

This is a metaphor for all life. We have opinions foisted on us which are so different it’s truly hard to see which ones have merit. Most of them have evidence that makes them appear reasonable, whichever side they come from. But that’s the thing isn’t it? Our opinions come from our experiences or those of others we’ve observed. That must be right then? But we forget that the other side’s experiences are also from what they have seen and observed.

You can get fed up with it all and decide to opt out and just follow the crowd instead, buckle down and try to learn the ‘rules’ (and try to ignore those succeeding who are clearly not following any of them), or you can be one of those awkward or rebel type people. Go your own way. Make your own mistakes but as you do, you figure out what’s going to work best for what you want and how you do things. (And I'm having to do that with the art as with the rest of my life.)

Our inclination to seek advice from those around us can scupper our chances of making something of our lives, especially if those around us hold a somewhat negative philosophical world view. They live lives based on that view, but if you want to be over where the cool people are, then you’re going to have to go over there and see who those people really are and how they got there. So, you’re going to be on your own for a bit, because you’re going to have to avoid the negative types, and maybe you’ll feel like you’re going nowhere…until you stumble onto a new group of adventurers who are going to the same places as you. Those around you right now can’t see your destination. Maybe you can’t yet either but at least you know where you don’t want to be and that’s a start.

I’m at that point right now. Struggling to find peace with the part time job whose mid-day intrusion into my creating time has become so frustrating. After years of putting off the creativity, I’m now cursing where I’ve got to with it i.e. with a reduced hours job that pays for everything but leaves more time to sculpt. Pretty good actually. But it's constricting now. It’s a necessary stopping off point of course, but fighting against myself as I wrestle with what I think I can achieve/the time I have available/what my limited capacity to imagine success can conjure up is just making things worse and I feel like I’m falling short and I’ve barely started!

But imagining a world bigger than what you’ve allowed yourself to imagine takes time and practice. I have glimpses. But it feels like there’s something super obvious that I’m just not seeing. Maybe I’m trying too hard. Maybe this is where I need to take a breather as there’s been this concentrated period of time for the last three or four months where I’ve been planning, thinking and making stuff as fast as I can and it’s left no space for inspiration or ideas to filter through. Creativity comes not just from relentless work and experimenting, but in the spaces we leave free of that relentless effort. I know this. But I still have to learn it.