Learn To Pick Your Battles
When I was a younger artist, I was hell bent on acheiving professional success. Even then I knew that making a living at being an artist was what I wanted to do. I would spend my summers running my landscaping business and then, in the evenings or on weekends I would be in our old horse barn, painting, sometimes a little, more often late into the evening.
With this kind of work ethic I was able to produce quite a bit of artwork while I was away from University. It allowed me to be part of a two man show in my third year and gave me a solo thesis show at the end of my degree.
At the time I was working in a more expressionistic style, sometimes employing patching trowels and other hardware implements to bring my work to life. This gave me a lot of work, paintings of various styles that I realized I could shop around if I felt so inclined and that’s exactly what I did — but poorly.
The work I’d done at York was all enormous, four feet by twelve feet, that kind of over-acheiving nonsense. After graduating I started to get into more intimate, intricate and smaller artworks. I came to the conclusion that if I was going to become a big important artist that I’d have to start showing my work, build up my CV (Curriculum Vitae also known as a ’resume’) and get some shows under my belt. Smaller paintings were going to help acheive this end.
When I had some painting finished I started to throw my work around. I’d go after just about every opportunity I could, every juried exhibition, every open call to artists, every themed show that fit with my subject matter, every grant. I went after as much as I could as fast as I could, after all I was building my resume more or less from scratch. My reasoning was this — the quicker I could lengthen my CV, the quicker I would be taken seriously as a professional artist.
This mad fervor of exhibitioning culminated in 2004 when I was in no less than seven shows. For some of you reading this post that may not seem like a lot of exhibitions, but when you look at my work and know just how long it takes to create, believe me, it was a lot of effort to collect those seven show credits.
At the time I was part of a group called the Colour and Form Society (CFS) based here in Toronto. I had been accepted into one of their open calls a year earlier at the Etobicoke City Hall. This entitled me to apply for membership in their group. Of course, in my current frame of mind I jumped at the opportunity. Being part of the Colour and Form Society? That was gonna look aces on my CV!
Some of the shows in 2004 were with the CFS. Others were outside of their collective. I went from Clarington in the East end to Hamilton in the West. I showed in backwater Stoufville and in the prestigious Hummingbird Centre. I was everywhere that year and do you know where it got me? Nowhere, that’s where.
I was so intently focused on building up my resume and getting my work into the public eye that I never gave any consideration to whose eye my work was appearing in front of.
Most of the shows I was in that year featured very traditional styles of work — landscape, still-life, portraiture and abstraction. Then there was me. I was completely and totally the odd man out and although I realized it, I didn’t care. At the time I thought it was funny. Here I was, the freak of the group shaking up all the normal artists and viewers, giving them something new to think about, something original to grapple with. I was deluded.
The fact of the matter is that not many people gave my work a second glance. Although they might agree that it was nicely painted or provocative, their intention in attending was to see landscapes, and still-lifes, and portraits, and abstracts, not pop-surrealism / lowbrow / outsider Art. I was appealing to entirely the wrong crowd and it showed.
By the end of my seventh and final show that year, I had sold nothing, I had received almost no critical feedback about my work and had talked to hardly anyone about it. Viewers did not come to these shows to see what I did. They didn’t know what it was, how to engage with it and therefore they passed it by. I had picked some poor battles to be in, indeed.
The only show in 2004 that was appropriate for my type of artwork to appear in was the El Dia De Los Muertos show staged by Todd Lawson at the Community Centre for Media Arts in Hamilton. It was filled with work not unlike mine and, as you can assume, it went over quite well. I spent most of the night talking at great length about my painting and my technique with a very intent and annoying young lady. She monopolized my time that night – and has ever since. Thanks for coming to that show Cath, my love! There was even one young man there who was making a sketch from my artwork. How’s about that? Someone was copying and learning from my work!
What I’m trying to relate to you with this post is that it is entirely possible to be a practicing artist and have your efforts be fruitless. If your work is abstract, don’t apply to be in a show about realistic still-life. If your work is sculpture, don’t apply to a show dedicated to painting. These are rather extreme examples of mismatched pairs but you understand what I’m getting at. If you want your work to be seen by people who are going to appreciate it, engage with it and come away having experienced it then make sure you’re going to be in a show where those people will be. Anything less is pointless.
I’ve wised up quite a bit in the last five years. Now, although there are opportunities going on all around me all the time, I don’t crusade after them. I go to the markets that will sustain my genre of artwork. I pick my battles more carefully, choose to show in galleries that support my style of painting with other artists that are similar in subject and tone as me. This has worked out much better for me and my artwork. I sell paintings more regularly now and am generating a following. If you think about the next opportunity on your own horizon, and your artworks suitability within it, you may too.
For now, that is all. Goodnight.
