Today in Canada, we observe the first National Day for Truth and Reconciliation. Earlier this year, the Canadian government made this a statutory holiday for all federal employees. Although I wasn’t able to find what year the last was created, it is only the sixth national statutory holiday, putting it on the same footing as Christmas, Thanksgiving, and Remembrance Day, indicating the importance the subject is being given. The day is intended to remember the estimated 150000 First Nations, Inuit, and Métis children who were taken from their families to be “educated” at over 140 residential schools across the country from 1831 to 1996, the thousands that never came home, and the lasting effects this “policy” has had on survivors, their families, their communities, and indeed their nations. The date also coincides with Orange Shirt day, which was started by Indigenous-led grassroots groups in 2013. One of the goals of the National Day for Truth and Reconciliation is to take time to pause and learn more about what really happened to Canada’s indigenous peoples. So instead of reading my words today, won’t you please visit https://www.orangeshirtday.org/ to learn more. I think you will find this is very different from what we were taught in school. The more we learn, although it may make us uneasy and shameful, hopefully, will also lead us to more respect for Canada’s indigenous peoples. If you want to learn more about Canada’s indigenous peoples, the website of Crown-Indigenous Relations and Northern Affairs has built a “Learning Journey” for you: https://www.rcaanc-cirnac.gc.ca/eng/1621447127773/1621447157184
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This week I attended the opening of an art show at a local museum that I recently joined. The show featured the art of four young women, all emerging artists. Because art show descriptions are often written in “artspeak”, I wasn’t sure what to expect, but I wanted to see this museum as I would like to show there someday. It was an interesting show. The main room was devoted to one of the artists, and the other three artists each had a smaller area. We got to see two of the displays before the requisite speeches marking the opening and took in the other two after said speeches. What struck me was that all four young ladies had used their art to exorcise various demons that had kept them prisoners for a long time. And it was obvious from some of the speeches that unfortunately these demons weren’t quite done with them. While listening to the young women explain their processes, my old “impostor syndrome” demon was whispering in my ear…. “See, THESE are real artists, not you, you haven’t had to go through what they have, you’re way too normal, you’ve lived a coddled life and there’s no way you will ever produce meaningful art like these tortured souls have…. All you do is paint pretty pictures… no pain… no trauma … no angst … how BORING!!!" I have to say that some of the art that was presented was, to my eyes, terrible. As in not good. Although I found some of the paintings in the main room quite attractive and well done (but not enough to want to buy one), after hearing from the artist where they were from and how they came about, I was even more certain I wouldn’t want to own one. I am truly sorry that these women had to go through what they did, and although I am extremely happy that this young woman was able to use art to explore and dismiss many of her demons, I don’t really want to be reminded of her struggles every time I look at her art on my walls! Maybe that is wrong, but that’s just the way I am. I discussed this later with a few close friends who are also artists, wondering what they felt about this idea that true art can only come from angst. The reality is that everyone I talked to felt that they wanted to be surrounded by art that made them feel good, not depressed. If I want that, I can watch the news! I tried looking online for discussions of art and angst, but found little but the oft-repeated stories about “troubled artists”. Van Gogh comes to mind. Humans being what they are, troubled artists seem to get more press than happy ones! Perhaps I have not dug deep enough into my past to find my true traumas, or perhaps I am just more resilient than some and don’t consider the bumps along my life path as being worthy of the name “trauma”, or perhaps I truly have been blessed with an angst-free life. Of course, like most people, I have made poor choices, have lost loved ones, and had bad relationships, but I consider these part of a normal life, accept them and move on. Although they no doubt helped shape who I am, I will not dwell on them or let them define me. And except for times like this week when the “impostor syndrome demon” finds something to feed on and makes me wonder if I am wrong when the rest of the world is right, I am fine with who I am and what I have done so far. So unless I wake up one morning in a major “Aha moment”, I will continue to paint what I find beautiful, I will continue to explore and learn new techniques to try to quench my thirst for knowledge, and will continue to try to find ways to capture beauty on paper to bring joy to people’s lives and to promote my belief that original art is magical! Do let me know what you think in the comments. Can true art exist without angst? Would you, or do you, have art born from angst in your home? Thanks! At the suggestion of an artist friend, I will be giving you an overview today about what’s coming up for me this Fall, now that Summer is pretty much over and my regular stints at the local Farmer’s Market are coming to an end. Well, it turns out, a lot! I am already present at two ongoing art shows, one that ends October 17 and the other October 31st. They are both group shows, one in Sherbrooke and the other in Magog. We actually had a real live in-person “vernissage” in Magog last week, where I was lucky enough to win a door prize, a nice studio apron, which I really needed! Now I have to make time to sort out the studio so I can get some work done! Not that I have been idle, quite the contrary! I have spent the last 3 (now going on 4) full days on the computer, filling out a variety of applications and updating my website to include my full-sized paintings. The online service that I had been using up to now to display them was separate from my website, where I had only my smaller, easy to ship items. They are shutting down that particular service next week, so I had to put the finishing touches on the new page that will now house these larger paintings on my website. I actually think this makes more sense, so even though I was upset when I got the news about the service shutting down, it turns out to be a good thing. I also wrote and sent a press release to a local paper about my plan to spread knowledge locally about ACEOs(Art Cards, Editions and Originals) and ATCs(Artist Trading Cards). I will be curious to see if they decide to print it. I doubt it very much, but you never know! Culture Days are coming up, so they might be interested in publishing something more in line with art and culture! Speaking of Culture Days, that is next weekend, and coincides with the last Farmer’s Market in my town. I will be at the market on Friday of course, trying to get people interested in ATCs. I will also have two of my paintings in an art show on Saturday. There is a free concert in the evening, so there should be lots of visitors! I ordered some more business cards and bookmarks to hand out at these events, which I will have to go pick up later today. I filled out an application for another art show in Magog, and signed up for a Facebook promotion run by a local marketing firm; this online event will take place in November, and will group dozens of local businesses that will be offering prizes to participants. I will be offering a 5x7 custom watercolor if you want to watch for that! Oh yes, and I am also participating all week in an online “Content Camp”, which aims to teach budding entrepreneurs how and what to post on social media to get attention. And it’s all about the attention, isn’t it!?! Tell me if you notice anything different with my posts in the next few weeks! This coming Sunday we will be attending an art show opening at an Art Center of which I recently became a member. I have heard that attending this type of event can be a good place to meet the “right people”. We’ll see! Being an introvert doesn’t make meeting people easy, but I have been working on it! The following week, Saturday, October 2nd, I will be “manning” the exhibit at the Sherbrooke exhibition. If you are local and would like to see any of my work, let me know so I can bring it in for you! Details on all my current exhibitions can be found on my website. The only other possible event on the current radar is a weekend Christmas Market in November. I haven’t decided yet if I will be participating in that. What do you think? Is that a place for art, or more for crafts? Is “exposure” worth the price of a space and the time spent there? Do you shop at Christmas Markets? Would you buy art (small pieces) there? I would love to see you answers in the comments below! I hope to find some time to actually make art this week! I received some new pastels and need to redo a swatch sheet. That may be as far as I get! Oh well, next week looks pretty open! I am always trying to know my potential collectors better, so that I can connect with them and provide them with great art they will love. In an effort to find out what they think, I recently conducted a bilingual survey about art purchasing habits. There were 10 questions with a choice of answers, as well as room for respondents to leave comments. The anonymous survey was posted on my Facebook page and a link was also included in my weekly newsletter. To get a larger sampling, I encouraged people to share it with friends, so except for a few people who told me they filled it out, I have no way of knowing who answered. I don’t pretend that it is a scientifically valid sample, but I feel it’s safe to assume that most of the people who responded are people that know me or at least know of me or my art. I was interested in knowing more about the art buying habits of people around me, in the hopes that it would help me decide where I should concentrate my attention. I published the question results one per day on my Facebook page, but without commenting or analyzing the results, so that’s what I will do here. Overall, I received more responses than I expected, but fewer than I would have liked. More responses would generate more reliable data statistically, but would it really be more useful to me? I believe there is no point in me collecting data from people who have no interest in my art, and that I should not let their opinion skew my decisions. I know that a lot of people buy art in galleries, for example, and that a lot also buy it from “Winner’s”, but if they are not “my people”, I shouldn’t base my decisions on their opinion. I could be wrong, but that’s what I did. So what surprised me about the results? The first surprise was that 80% of the respondents said their last art purchase was for themselves, and not for a gift. This will certainly have an impact on how I present my work, as I assumed that more people would be buying my art, especially the smaller pieces, as gifts. The second surprise was where people are most likely to buy art. From a list of 10 types of places that sell art, respondents were asked to pick which they would FIRST consider, POSSIBLY consider, and NEVER consider when buying art. I was very surprised that the most popular choice was the artist’s personal website, with 52%. I will certainly have to take a look at mine, especially as the art management site I am currently using will drop their portfolio feature later this month. I have a plan in place, but I will have to take a second look at it. Soon! Festivals and shows, indoor or out, were the second and third most likely places to buy art, so I will continue doing these. One answer that I had not included in the choices, but that was given by several respondents in the comments was “at the artist’s location”. That is very interesting and supports my idea of having a “studio show” in the future. I was really happy to find out that, contrary to what I thought, most people are NOT likely to buy their art at big box or discount stores such as Rona or Winners. In fact these were picked by 71% and 57% of respondents as the places they would NEVER consider to buy art. That was good news, because these stores do appear to sell, or at least offer, a lot of inexpensive “art”. Another surprise about the responses to the “where” questions was how art galleries scored. Only 20% listed them as one of their FIRST choices, 40% as POSSIBLY, and 15% said they would NEVER consider them. Although I have been considering getting into galleries, it appears I will have to think about it a bit more! Not so surprising was the fact that although most people would prefer to own original art, they find reproductions more affordable. In order to keep in line with my mission of promoting the ownership of original art, I will have to think about how I can address this better. I will also have to consider that for almost 40% of the respondents, “overpaying” is the #1 fear when it comes to purchasing art. Cost is definitely a factor, with 74% of respondents indicating, not surprisingly, that they have no specific budget for art. However, all but one of these said that if they saw something they liked under a certain amount (from $50 to $250), they would probably buy it. I was surprised that almost 20% of respondents said they had an annual art budget of $500. Now I wish I had asked for names and addresses!! ;-) Lastly, and not surprisingly, for 80% of the respondents who have a spouse, the opinion of that spouse is at least “moderately” important when buying art over $250. Art purchasing may be a personal thing, but spouse “buy-in” is important. Conclusions People will buy art because they like it. Art galleries are not as popular as art shows and festivals. People like to buy art directly from the artist. They may be afraid of spending on art because they are concerned that they will “fall out of love” with it. Many of the comments indicate that people don’t know enough about art to be comfortable buying it, but most respondents know enough about art not to be buying it at big box stores. I will continue to participate in as many art shows and festivals as I can. I will continue to offer my one year buy-back guarantee to my subscribers, and promote it more so people know I offer it. I will offer tips on my various platforms to help people learn more about art. I will revisit my website to make sure it is doing the best job it can. I will continue to offer affordable original art to fulfill my mission of promoting ownership of original art. I will also consider having an “open studio” type show. If I do another survey, I will ask people a few demographic questions. I purposely avoided these so respondents could answer freely without thinking they were being tracked, but I realize that a few simple questions, such as age, could have afforded some insight into some answers. Again, thank you to everyone who participated in the survey. Your answers have been very useful to me. I have left the survey open if anyone wants to add their opinion or comments. Do you think I made the wrong conclusions? Are you surprised by the results? Let me know in the comments! I have been “doing” art for about 15 years now, but have only been identifying as an artist for about the last two. If you have never heard of it, there is something called “impostor syndrome”, and it is a condition that a lot of people, but particularly artists, suffer from on and off. You can find many definitions online, but basically, it is the fear that you are really not competent at what you do, and that it’s only a matter of time until you are discovered as an impostor. This fear has made me read a lot about what it is to be a “real” artist, and a recurring theme is that an artist is driven and has a mission. I have been giving this a lot of thought, and until recently couldn’t really pinpoint what my mission was. Not having any formal art training didn’t help, as I blamed that for not knowing where my drive comes from or what my mission is. Be forewarned that the road to the discovery of my mission is a meandering one, so try to bear with me while I take you on a little adventure... My first tagline or elevator pitch-- that short answer to the question “So, what do you do?” asked by a stranger on a fictional elevator ride-- was: ”I capture beauty on paper to help brighten up people’s lives.” A good first step. Some further soul searching lead me to realize that a lot of what I do is for recognition. I was a very quiet child, the fourth of five children. The youngest was sick as a child, received a lot of attention, and apparently could do nothing wrong. I am not sure how much this influenced my character, but I certainly resented this, and, being quiet, I didn’t express it much. Even later in life, at work, for example, things I would say quietly would be taken (i.e. stolen) by others who would then get the laughs or recognition. In writing descriptions of my works for my online portfolio, I noticed that the word “shadow” would come back repeatedly. I do like strong contrasts and strong shadows. So a few months ago I realized this was no coincidence. I had lived much of my life in the shadows, and art had given me a way to come out. So my tagline is now: “I have come out of the shadows to capture beauty on paper to help brighten up people’s lives.” It still needs work, but it’s closer to the truth. I have had an art booth at a local Farmer’s Market almost every week this summer, with very limited “commercial” success. I have tried a variety of ideas to improve my visibility and outreach, none of which has really worked, but artists are persistent apparently! One of the things I tried was to set up a small corner of my booth to promote ATCs (Artist Trading Cards) and to encourage visitors to participate by making an ATC (at home) and then come back and trade it. No one has yet taken me up on it, but a few people did find the concept interesting. My latest effort, which I hope to try out this week (rain is in the forecast, unfortunately) is to have a “participative painting” event. My plan is to have an easel set up with some watercolor paints and to ask people to participate in a group painting. I will draw the resulting painting among the participants, allowing one of them to now own a piece of original art. I am also working on developing a project to submit to a local museum, which would have a participative ATC component, to get people involved in making and owning original art. This week I watched a couple of videos of conferences given by Simon Sinek. (I told you the road was winding!) I had never heard of him until last weekend when his name was mentioned in a Zoom meeting of an art marketing group I belong to. His message can be summed up as follows: “People don't buy what you do, they buy why you do it”. I therefore had to stop and think “Why do I love what I do?” “What is my purpose, cause, or belief?” And that is when it hit me! That was my mission! To ensure that everyone can own at least one piece of original art! Why? Because in a world overwhelmed by technology, where virtual and artificial things can be conjured up in an instant, humans are losing their humanity. People will ignore the people sitting right with them in order to talk to another on their phone. We may be more connected, but we are losing touch! I highly recommend another talk by Simon Sinek about this very issue. A piece of original art (don’t get me started on NFTs or Non-Fungible Tokens!!!) is magical! It is genuine, handmade with care and attention by another human being, and is a way to connect to another human through time. Books also allow this connection, but you normally can’t get to hold and feel the actual object that the original creator also held and felt, like you can with an art object. There is only one of this artwork, and you are holding it in your hands! You can see the brushstroke, or the chisel mark, and know that the artist saw the exact same thing. And that is a very powerful connection! You could say the same is true about almost any physical object. Someone made it, someone touched it, and now you are touching it. But the difference with art is the purpose. Someone created the artwork with the sole purpose of communicating with another human. Communicating their feelings of awe before the beauty of Nature, of horror from the devastation of war or disaster, of admiration for a person of stature or a beautiful form, of curiosity of the effects of certain media or colors on substrates, or of rejection of the status quo in art itself. You could argue that some art also serves a “practical” purpose, such as a chair or vase, but you would have to agree that most art does not. And that is unique. Perhaps you knew all this. Remember that my formal education was mostly in the Sciences, and although I have always liked Art, I never really considered it as “important” until I started producing it myself. I am glad I have this blog to write each week because it forces me to stop and think about what I do and why I do it, and expressing it in writing helps to clarify it for myself. I am glad you are reading it, and appreciate your feedback! It took me a while, but I am glad to have made these discoveries, and will pursue this mission to spread the message and convince everyone I know that they too, should own a piece of magical, original art! |
AuthorMy name is Claire Bureau. Archives
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