I ran across an article on Ted ideas that made me unaccountably sad.  The article is entitled, "Why Beauty Matters."  http://ideas.ted.com/why-beauty-matters/  I'm a bit baffled at the thought.  Do we really have to explain to anyone why beauty matters?

Are there people on earth who are not moved at the beauty of great art or a wonderfully created building or nature in its most pristine?  I find that difficult to believe.  Every culture - from the cave painters to the Aborigines to the Aztecs, the Greeks and the Romans to today - every culture has valued beauty.  While the standards of what constitutes beauty have changed from culture to culture, every society has valued some form of beauty.

As an artist, I find the thought that we might have to explain why beauty matters particularly frightening.  Do I really have to explain to people why it is that they should buy art which resonates with them?  Apparently so.  Apparently, we artists must explain this to middle and upper middle class Americans.  I know of members of my own family who, despite being comfortably in the upper middle class, do not own original art.  Instead, they have on their walls what I call "Target art".

How do we gently but firmly encourage such people to buy original art?  Do you all have any ideas?

In a few days (hopefully!), we will begin a remodel of our kitchen.  In order to obtain planning and design ideas, I subscribed to houzz.com.  I totally love this site.  They provide brilliant ideas, color choices, appliance ideas, garden ideas and, occasionally,  art articles.  One such article is http://www.houzz.com/ideabooks/6515582/list/collect-with-confidence-an-art-buying-guide-for-beginners. 

This is a nice little article on some of the basics of art buying. 

Please feel free to share this article with others.  We must encourage "newbies" to consider local, affordable art.

"If you work hard — with focus, diligence, integrity, honesty, optimism, and courage — on your own tiny corner of the tapestry, you just might produce something good."  Dani Shapiro from Still Writing, as quoted in BrainPickings.org

This is just one of the messages I've gotten lately as I'm working toward figuring out what "success" looks like.  I've read a couple of blogs lately that eloquently related their view that "success" was creating excellent work.  Of course, from what they said, they were feeding their families and paying the bills with art sales.  It occurred to me that once you had hit that level of course you could opine that your only true goal was to create something good.  

Here's the thing though.  Did the chicken come first or the egg?  Did the production of "something good" (in Dani Shapiro's words) lead to the sales or do the sales lead to the luxury of producing something good?  

Inquiring minds want to know.  

Next up: a discussion of The One Thing by Gary Keller

I'm always fascinated by other artists talks.  I love to hear what people say about their work; why they create, why they created this exact body of work, what they were thinking about when creating, what inspires them, what their background is - the whole who what where when why thing.  One of the reasons that I like to listen to other artists talk about their work is that I know at some point that someone will ask me to talk about mine. 

That scares the fooey out of me.

This is ironic considering that I spent my first career talking.  I sold hot air.  I was a trial lawyer.  But somehow talking about my art is ... different.  It is way WAY harder.  

My art is personal in a way that the practice of law never was.  After all, a trial is all about the client and the client's problem.  My art is all about me.  It is a reflection of me.  Each piece is my vision, my concept, my technique, my version of beautiful.  It usually doesn't bother me if people are not wild about my art.   Indeed, I think of clients whom I met at art fairs as a self-selected group.  Those who walk on by probably like only representational art.  They'd never buy abstract art so I'm not hurt when they walk on by.  However, in some fundamental way, talking to a crowd of folks who may or may not be wild about  my art is a whole different thing.   It is judgement day and I'm the one on trial.  

It doesn't help that I am in one of the top galleries in Denver, Walker Fine Art.  The other Walker artists are impossibly erudite, educated and accomplished.  Their artist talks are captivating.  On my best day I couldn't possibly hope to be as eloquent about my art as they are about theirs.  

I know that eventually I'll have to muscle through this fear.  Eventually someone, probably my gallery, will want me to give an artist talk.  Until then, I will continue to attend every artist talk that I can, not only to hear what other artists have to say about their work but also in the hope that I will somehow learn the artist talk "tricks of the trade".