Gairdt Edwards: 2011

Friday, July 22, 2011

The key is to never stop working.

The hardest part of being an artist--whether you're trained or just skilled, or you just like to color and draw--is to never quit working. It is difficult to sit down and put a pencil to paper or kick it for a few hours with some paint and a couple of brushes. Further, it is inexplicable the amount of space that is taken up by this "fine art" crap; stuff that your mother would magnetize to the fridge if it wasn't 48 inches long by 67 inches wide and on wood panel. It is even more disgracing when one gives an art piece to a close family member only to find it on the wall upside-down beside the bathroom just because it was given without any hanging directions and is apparently "too abstract" to be shown in only one way. Another smiling moment is when one gives a piece to his/her mother only for her to say "would you put a little red in it so we can put it in the living room?"

I have often thought it to be much easier as a graphic designer in order to consolidate square feet and reduce my carbon stamp on the world. So much space has been taken up that I have seriously considered leaving paintings by the dumpster when I've relocated, or calling the director of the show "Hoarders" just so that I may claim a little notoriety from the coach-potato viewers.

I have given pieces to family, sold a couple, traded one for a recliner chair, etc. I have shown in galleries, one museum, and a bunch of coffee shops. The reality is that work is just not being bought nor sold, unless the artist is very well known, or dead.

But the moral of the story is to never stop working... ever. Or just do yourself a favor and don't be an artist.