Is your art ‘worthy’?
an inner dialogue about selling art
Last month, I shared with you how I want to show up for you, as an artist guide, as a spiritual guide, and a cheerleader-in-chief. I also mentioned that I want to be honest with you about the frustrating, uncertain, risky, and challenging parts of being an artist!
Not that I like to whine, but I do think it is helpful to normalize the frustrating and risky bits of creating art by showing my own fits and starts. This post might have a wee bit of whining!
But first, celebrate with me because I took a baby step!
I just dropped off five framed originals, four matted prints, and a couple of packs of Celtic Knot note cards to a shop in Columbus called the Golden Hobby Gift Shop. It offers a huge variety of handmade goods for sale, including quilts, ceramics, woodcrafts, paintings and more, all made by Columbus-area seniors.
Hey, that’s me! I proudly claim my Columbus-area senior status. Yay!! For putting my art out into the world!
Here’s one of my framed originals. I call her Blue Femme.
But it was hard and a lot of work.
After choosing the art, I sorted through mats to match them with upcycled frames and the paintings. Assembling the mats and paintings into the frames would have been much easier with the right tools.*
I gathered up a stack of paintings that needed custom cut mats and dropped them at my helpful local frame shop. Not having planned ahead, I got hit with a rush fee and was charged prices that will be rolled into the purchase price of the finished piece, but still caused me serious sticker shock!
I’m telling myself that it’s all good information. As I create new paintings, I’ll be more intentional about using substrates that fit standard frames and readily available mats!
Why do I want to sell my art? In part, this is a bit of Swedish Death Cleaning. My husband would not know what to do with all of my art, and instead of his throwing it all in the trash bin, I’ll offer it for sale. Another part is the more I sell, the more art supplies I can buy, and the more art I can make. Isn’t that a wonderful creative cycle!
All of that aside, by far the hardest part was choosing which of my many art pieces was ‘worthy’ of investing in matting and framing to ready it for the world.
So then, why was this so hard for me? Join the crowded space inside my head. Just nudge that inner critic over to make some space for yourself and listen in to my inner dialogue on this issue! For full effect, read the italicized questions in your whiniest voice and read the responses in your loving, reassuring voice you’d use for a dear child.
By the way, do you have this endless banter going on in your head, too?
Agggg!!! Who gets to decide whether my art is ‘worthy’?
YOU DO! Because you’re the artist! Your paintings need to have you as their advocate!
Then why do I keep abdicating that responsibility?
Am I letting other people decide what is ‘good enough’?
Why am I waiting to be chosen by someone else?
Let’s acknowledge that there is a benefit to letting someone else decide for you. If the choice is wrong, you are absolved from any blame because you didn’t make the choice. But what about the other side of the equation? Once you choose, you have to take responsibility for making the choice happen and that involves some work.
There is also a perception of safety in sticking with what you know and the way it has always been done, even if that safe zone is uncomfortable or restrictive. The cost? You severely limit all new exciting (and unknown) possibilities. That doesn’t feel like an artist’s life!
Choose you! Embrace the risk that comes with the artist’s territory. Make a mark and then respond to that mark. Choose a painting and offer it for sale. Keep choosing what is true for you.
But what if I make the wrong choice?!?
You will have gained more information. There is very little riding on your choices. You’re not over here doing brain surgery. If some pieces don’t sell, swap them out with new pieces. Just keep making art!
But what if people think my art is ugly?
What if it’s not good enough?
You, as the artist, are a very bad judge of your art! You are negatively biased because you know all the mistakes, and you’ve ridden the bumpy road with your piece to get to this point. You know your vision and how close (or far away!) you are to capturing that vision. But your viewers are not carrying those burdens. They are seeing it for the first time and will react to it based on their own biases - something over which you have absolutely no control!!!
Let me repeat: you have no control over whether someone likes your art or not; whether someone buys your art or not. You only control whether to offer your art for sale. How people react to your art is not in your control!
Remember that saying: It doesn’t have to be pretty, it just has to be true! Your one job as the artist is to paint your truth. As long as your art is true, your part is finished, and how it is received by the world is none of your business.
But what is true???
True for you. True resonates. True is aligned with what you want to convey, with your message. True is a painting that accurately (as best as you can) represents what feelings you want to capture. True is not a copy of someone else’s work. True is not appropriating someone else’s trending message. Trust your artist soul to lead you to your truth. And paint that.
Now, after all that bickering, it’s time for some chocolate to calm my inner child/inner critic.
I’ll keep moving forward by telling myself to just take the next right step.
And I must say, framing and matting your art really elevates it! A frame makes your art look amazing!
If you’re in the Columbus area, stop by the Golden Hobby Gift Shop and be amazed at all the handmade gifts on offer! They will be hosting Holiday Sip and Shop on December 4th from 4 - 8. Should be fun!
What does your inner critic stop you from choosing?? How do you keep it quiet? Besides chocolate?
*I just bought myself a framing point gun. Hope I don’t shoot my eye out.