ARE WE HAVING FUN YET?

I have been pondering the issue of whether art can be defined as fun, and I suppose like anything else, its all in how you chose to look at it. For someone who supports themselves entirely by their creative juices, the short answer is that its really not. Don't get me wrong, there have been times when I have looked at something I have been working on and thought...wow....that is so cool I can hardly stand it...and I did that! I had a dream a few years ago about a design for a new gourd, got up the next day, sketched it out, collected my photographs, wrote an email to the Transvaal Zoo in South Africa to ask one of the zookeepers to fax me pictures of a rhino foot print, and proceeded to begin work on the first $20,000 gourd I ever attempted, and when I saw it again, not long ago in the collectors home, I actually didn't recognize it at first as my own and I was completely blown away by its beauty. And the fact that this piece is part of a collection that includes works by Robert Bateman and Guy Coleach, and Dino Paravano, doesn't hurt either. But the process of creating and selling art can be anything but fun. Take now for example. Its 2:30 in the morning, and I can't sleep. I haven't been able to sleep well for the last month because I have several shows coming up, and I just can't seem to catch up with myself. I spend up to 14 hours a day, every single day of the week in the studio, chipping away at my commitments, and I feel like I never get anything done. There are boxes, and gourds, and handbags, and canvasses, and gemstone, and paint, and equipment, and tools EVERYWHERE, so yesterday, I spent eight hours doing nothing but organizing my space so I could find the things I needed to create, and I didn't wind up showering until almost 4:00 in the afternoon, and then, after a short break, I went back to work on pieces for these upcoming shows until almost 10:00 at night. A few weeks from now, I will pack up the trailer, and head to Atlanta, where it rained so hard on opening night last year that they had to cancel the show on Friday night. My husband and I will spend the rest of the weekend in the sun, or the rain, or the heat, or the humidity (and, most likely, some combination of all four) hoping some passerby finds themselves so taken with something we have been working on for the last few weeks, that the mortgage company will receive their monthly stipend. In other words, art, for me, is a full time business, without any guarantees and often undertaken at a huge financial risk, and even though I feel a twinge for pulling the curtain back to reveal that art is not the carnival it appears, I also realize that there are things this vocation has provided that I would have never experienced in any other line of work. I have had the privilege of traveling from one end of this country to the other, usually on every two lane highway through the middle of nowhere that I could find. I've sold art to people I would have never met if I would have stayed in Oregon after college and pursued a career in broadcasting (which was my major). I've developed amazing friendships with people who started out as collectors and stayed on as my adopted family. I've been commissioned to do work for everyone from Jane Goodall and Colin Powell to the executive producer of the Lord of the Rings, and I have had the freedom to experiment with everything from contemporary gourd art (huge failure) to huge paintings (and yet,i am still not comfortable as a painter). So like I said before in a previous entry....art, as a career pursuit, is just like any other job. But I can honestly say that, on the whole, it has been an incredible journey...

Where to start????

I have been wrestling with my follow up entry because there is so much I want to say. It has been an interesting year so far, particularly since I have been focusing so much of my time on developing this new line of handbags. For fifteen years, I was completely devoted to the pursuit of gourd art, and made inroads I was never expected to make even though I was told over and over again that no one would ever take gourd art seriously; that I was a good painter and should pursue painting as my vocation, that gourds were a passing fancy, that no one knew what a gourd was, that everyone with a woodburning tool and a box of paints was doing them. I happen to be one of those people who loves the phrase "it can't be done" so naturally, I set off to prove the critics wrong. Fifteen years later, I feel as though there isn't a lot more to be accomplished in this field, and besides, devoting myself so thoroughly to a single pursuit cost me in ways I hadn't imagined at the time. Two years ago, I decided to experiment; with gourds, with paintings, with subject matter, with mediums, and now, with handbags. It has resulted in a "Persian Bazaar" effect on more than one occasion, but I find myself not only fascinated with so many different aspects of art, I also wanted to challenge my artistic abilities to see just what I was capable of. More artists than you can imagine spent years honing a particular style, only to abandon it for the style they became famous for, and while I find myself drawn to gourds over and over again, it helps to take time out once in awhile to try different things. I come back to the gourds filled with a renewed appreciation for the endless ways in which the form is interpreted, but I have also come to understand that some things can't be changed. The art world has tunnel vision when it comes to what qualifies as art, and even people with an intense appreciation for my work still think the only true art is an oil painting or a bronze sculpture. I also think that being an artist is MUCH, MUCH harder than people think it is. I have spent 100 hours a week in my studio, covered head to toe in saw dust, or gourd dust, or some kind of dust, working on pieces from morning to evening, trying to work out problems with respect to dimension, or color, or layout, woodburning for hours at a time, painting for hours at a time; a few years ago, I had drawn a layout for a piece that had an eagle in semi profile, and I got so frustrated with the way it wasn't coming, that I decided to go have some lunch, take a shower, and give it a try later that afternoon. I was headed to the bathroom a few minutes later, when I realized what I had done wrong, and three HOURS later, I looked up, realized the eagle was perfect, and I had never made it to the shower. And despite putting in 100 hours that week, I hadn't made a dime. So I guess I will say this about art and fun....it isn't fun at all sometimes, but it sure can be rewarding.....