Articles of Interest: How To Price Your Artwork — Part 1
                               How To Price Your Artwork — Part 2

This is an addendum article to the two listed above, How To Price Your Artwork Part 1 and Part 2. In those articles I talked about pricing your artwork so that you meet your expenses and  include a profit margin. I also mentioned that it would be a good idea to slightly inflate prices in case you had to do a little haggling when facing a client who either has less money or is offering less money than you’re asking.

Now, I gave only one model for pricing, the hourly rate model. Treat your painting / sculpting / drawing work as a day job and price it by the hour accordingly. Using this mode of pricing you’ll always be assured of receiving proper remuneration for the work you put into each piece.

The unfortunate drawback to pricing your artwork by the hour is that pieces of equal size may not be pieces of equal price. In the case of my own work, I’ve got paintings in my inventory which cost several thousand dollars more than others of a larger stature. That price is based solely on how many hours went into each work. The more technical I get with my painting the more time I spend on it. The more time I spend on a piece the higher the resultant price.

From an artistic standpoint this is a fine model. If  I work ‘x’ number of hours I’ll get paid ‘x’ number of dollars.

From a collector standpoint this model may be viewed with a bit of skepticism. If you were in the market to buy a painting, walked into a gallery where two paintings by the same artist were hanging, saw that the smaller of the two was priced at two times the price of the larger, which one do you think you’d buy?

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Articles of Interest: Help! I Have Too Many Ideas!

This is a companion article to the one listed above Help! I Have Too Many Ideas! In that article I talked about learning the virtue of patience, cataloguing your over-abundance of ideas for future reference and giving yourself permission to move on from and come back to unfinished works.

I’d like to talk about a problem that can arise from having too many ideas, too many avenues for artistic expression and giving yourself latitude to follow them all. While having an abundance of ideas isn’t necessarily a bad thing it can be detrimental to your practice in the long run if you’re not focused on one medium. Have you ever heard the saying “Jack of all trades, Master of none”? This can be especially true for the artistically gifted if a specific discipline is not picked for their individual practices.

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Articles of interst: Finding Your Artistic Path

This is a companion article to the one listed above Finding Your Artistic Path. In that article I talked about ways of finding your personal artistic path. I recommended trying several disciplines to find one that works best for you and to spend some time getting to know yourself in order to develop subjects which will be pertinent to your practice.

This article broaches a rather contentious issue and I fought over whether or not to write it. Here it goes…

I thought about the advice I gave in my previous writing and wondered: What if an individual, after all that exploration in Art, after trying all those disciplines and testing out idea after idea after idea was still unable to unveil their artistic path? What if the compulsion to engage in creative free expression wasn’t being satisfied by any of the visual mediums? The one logical answer that came to my mind was that maybe, just maybe, that person isn’t an artist.

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Articles of interest: Finding Your Artistic Path

Hi all! This is a companion article to the one listed above, Finding Your Artistic Path. The emphasis of that article was trying to find the best way to express yourself artistically when you find you’re under the spell of creative compulsion.

In it I suggested trying all kinds of artistic mediums to find one that resonates with you all the while communing with yourself, really getting to know you to see what drives you persoanlly and artistically. This process will eventually lead to a partnership between medium and subject that will allow you to create great Art.

But what if one medium isn’t enough? What if you have so many interests and ideas that just one subject isn’t enough? They may be spilling out of you at such a rapid rate that one idea is intruding on the other. What then?

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I’ve just seen one of the most impressive displays of mixed media artistry at the Meta Gallery in Toronto’s historic Distillery District. The gallery is currently hosting a two man show featuring the mixed media sculpture works of Kris Kuksi and the dark digital prints of Andrew Jones. Hands down, Kris Kuksi has stolen the show. He really should be shown alone. I can’t image too many artists who wouldn’t be upstaged by his artwork. Sorry Andrew.

There’s nothing like being confronted by masterful Art to make you feel like a complete hack. Kris’s sculptures are over the top. Impressive doesn’t even begin to describe them. I know it sounds like I’m blowing smoke up his backside but I can’t help the way they make me feel. His mixed media assemblages are both enthralling and off-puting at the same time. I’d liken the feeling to being entranced by a spiders eight legged dance of death in a beautifully spun web while suffering from arachnaphobia. Watching makes the hairs on your neck stand up but at the same time you – just – can’t – look – away!

Click on a pic for a closer view.

And look you should because you’ll never see the same thing twice. Artwork with this kind of detail and intricacy never gets tired. Made up of found objects, busts and action figures, toy cars, railroad model parts, star wars toys, miscellaneous airplane/train/ship model pieces and even industrial hardware/fasteners Kris’s work will always give you something new to look at depending on where you view it from. From the top, from the bottom, to the left or right each sculpture is made up of a million tiny pieces and will afford you a million different viewing experiences. Okay, maybe that is a bit of an exaggeration but you get the idea.

With overtones of the military establishment and the forced enslavement of the working classes to keep it running Kris’s work, beyond being beautiful, has some strong social comments to make. Where is the seat of power? Who has authority to deal out death and will it come for them one day too? Who can escape death and should we really be questing after it so boldly?

Inricate, elaborate, frenetic and engaging the macabre work of Kris Kuksi has a little bit of something for everyone and is worth checking out. He’ll be at the Meta Gallery (with Andrew Jones) until June 14th. Get out and see it today!

For now, that is all. Goodnight.