Sep 28, 2024

The Value of a Body of Work

I recently came across a statement that, like many statements on the Web, was entirely erroneous. It was bad information. This is what went down. Someone was complaining about not being able to sell their art. When have you ever heard someone complain about something like that? It happens. This was also a response to someone else, like the banana on the wall guy, selling work for lots of money. To which this person who was supposedly an authority, saying, unless someone or some entity or entities find the art to be valuable, it is, essentially, worth nothing. Now, a statement such as that just annoys the shit out of me. It is an entirely erroneous statement, and it breads a kind of apathy and despair that I find just terrible. 

My response, which I gave, I think, in a comment – but that is neither here nor there because I am making the response right here. My response is this. “A” work of art may not be worth anything if no one pays any attention to it and it is that proverbial tree falling in the forest that no one hears. But this is not what happens here, with artists and their art. The problem often is that they, themselves, do not value the work properly. Of course, sometimes they over value the work. That happens, too. But, more often, I believe, they undersell themselves and believe their work to be worth very little if anything, not even worth the cost of materials it took to make the art. That is deplorable, a deplorable situation. 

The truth is more like this. If you have a body of work, it’s worth something. If an artist spends an entire lifetime working their craft, you can bet that if the art is not worth anything, it certainly has the potential to be worth a lot. I’m not saying that always happens. The art may not get there, but it can. 

Let us take, for example, the work of Vincent Van Gogh. His brother amassed most of his work. His brother was an art dealer, but his brother somehow did not figure out how to sell Vincent’s work. An interesting thing, here: when Vincent Van Gogh died, his brother died soon after, months, I believe, or maybe a year. Vincent did not have a wife or girlfriend. (The prostitute for which he chopped off a piece of his ear does not count.) Theo, however, had a wife. When Theo died, all she had to her name, besides the house – was it mortgaged? Did she own it? I don’t know – was about 200 canvases painted by Vincent Van Gogh. 

That’s all she had, were those canvases. What did she do with those lemons? Well, they weren’t lemons, as you know. But they might as well have been at the time because nobody was buying them. She set up a campaign to sell those paintings and get some attention for Van Gogh. Due to her efforts, we now know the works of this man who died in comparative obscurity. Only after his death did his work start selling, due to her efforts. So, besides thanking Vincent for painting the paintings, and for his brother Theo in supporting him while he did that, we also have to thank Theo’s wife. I don’t even know here name. Of course, I can look that up. 

We have Theo’s wife to thank for the marketing campaign that skyrocketed Vincent Van Gogh’s work to an esteemed place of being highly valuable. And this is what I’m saying. What did she have? She had a body of work. Nobody thought those paintings were all that great. Nobody was buying them. Then she came along and changed that. Body of work. Someone to market it. Put those two things together. Suddenly the work is worth something. 

So this idea that art is not worth anything until somebody buys it or until somebody says it is is placing all the power in the hands of the buyer, and that is not where it should go, not even in this current capitalist, materialist climate of today. Money talks? So does the artist. The work may not seem to be worth anything today. The same cannot be said for tomorrow, if there is a BODY OF WORK. 

Case in point from something I just read today in the good old New York Times. An article in Arts and Letters entitled Some of the Best of America’s Art Is In the Yard. [Link to article.] There has been this trend where sculptors who have not gotten any attention from galleries and museums and so on have nonetheless created their sculptures. Where did they put the work? In their yards. And some have gotten recognition for this activity. Tyree Guyton, 69, makes art out of junk materials in Detroit. He’s now represented by Martos Gallery in New York. There’s a show of yard art at the Institute of contemporary Art in Philadelphia that includes artists like Noah Purifoy, who worked with junk materials on his property in Joshua Tree, California for 15 years, and John Outterbridge, who made assemblages of metal, wood, and other scraps. This is outsider art that has found it’s day in the sun. Outsider art. It is not even that great, if you want my opinion, some of it. But that doesn’t matter. What does? A body of work. 

The article begins by talking about Joe Minter. His “African Village in America” is located on the lawn of his home. This includes hundreds of sculptures. You can bet after the New York Times article, his work sells for something. A fellow named Sabato “Simon” Rodia, an Italian immigrant, was one of the first to create a major work of yard art. He was a day laborer. In his spare time, he built rebar towers, some nearly 100 feet tall, stitched together with wire and coated in mortar, behind his house in Watts, in a working-class neighborhood on the outskirts of LA. He worked obsessively on the project between 1921 and 1954. The City of Los Angeles ordered its demolition. It survived only because a graduate film student bought the property for $3,000 in 1959. A few years later, Rodia was immortalized as one of the cardboard cutout figures in the cover of the Beatles Sgt. Pepper’s album. The structures are now a historic landmark. Rodia saw the work as a gift to the community. He called the Watts Towers “Nuestro Pueblo,” or “Our Town”. Not everybody likes it, including those who live near it. But that’s art for you. 

Tyree Gyton’s “Heidelberg Project” began in the 70s. He transformed a neighborhood area into a multiblock conglomeration of found-art assemblages. He painted houses with polka dots and symbols. He created sculptures out of discarded children’s toys, old shoes, television sets and furniture. Word grew, and the area became a tourist spot. Some called this project an eyesore. That’s art. Most of the houses he painted were demolished. Two still stand. These were not the greatest structures: crack houses, burnt-out building and derelict houses. There is fund raising going on to save what is left of his project. Gyton’s art, which was represented and sold locally, is now highly collected. What was considered once upon a time trash, now, his current dealer can sell it for $40,000!

So don’t tell me that a body or work is not worth anything. It is worth a lot of money. It doesn’t even have to be all that good! 

I will tell any artist who asks, Do you know who the best person to sell your work is? You. The best person also to maintain the work is going to be the artist. Granted, we are not so great, most of us, at either one of those activities. Our heart, for most of us, is in the work. We feel this way and watch artists who can market themselves make millions. There’s Maurizio Cattelan, who I unaffectionately call “the banana on the wall guy”, and Jeff Koons, the mega rich pay other people to make your art guy. Their art is not that great. But they know how to sell it. And that’s what counts. They also evidently know how to schmooze and network. That may not be your game. It’s not mine. Even so, there’s plenty we can do even so to sell the work, and manage it. 

Now, I don’t own everything I have ever done. But I can keep better track of it. The Net is good for that. Social media is good for that. There are ways to keep track of one’s work. I could do better, much, much better. It’s work, doing that. Well, that is the cross an artist must bare. 

Even though I don’t own everything I have ever done, I own plenty. Picasso was that way. He kept his best work. He always did that, according to Francoise Gilot, one of Picasso’s lovers and father to her two children, who wrote the famous, My LIfe With Picasso. 

So, in summary, an artist must create the work, and, manage it as best as he can. That means creating a body of work. You sell some of it. You keep the rest. You manage it however you can. One day, the work will be worth something. 

Money is a capricious thing. Let’s recognize that. Art can valuate for insane amounts of money, and it can valuate for nothing. What the artist must do, here: keep a steady hand at the steering wheel. Don’t lose your cool. Stay calm. Stay balanced. Realize that what you have and what you are creating is worth something, even if right now you are the only one who thinks so. 

Let’s remember that an artist is around for only so long. That you create a body of work shows that you have staying power and that you have done it. You have accomplished something. Here we have the triumph of the human spirit. And it is worth something. It often ends up being worth a lot. 

The Pictures

I want to say a little bit about much of the art that will appear on these pages with the words I write. In the last post, I said that we artists have been forced, by todays world of selling art, to share our process in some way. We are rather forced to do that. So this portion of what I am writing here will do just that. I will share some of my process. 

Is this meta? Sure, it’s meta. There’s going to be plenty of that in this blog. Be prepared for that. It is sharing process. We have to do that. This is content. It is unavoidable. 

So, about the art that appears with these pictures. How do I cobble such things together? Well, it so happens that I have a body of work, and among that body of work is a body of work of paintings. Many of these paintings I made years ago, even decades ago. I just brought many of these paintings into my studio recently. I was hoping to interest a client and my art dealer, and that really hasn’t panned out yet as such. But that’s not problem. I like having the paintings here. I planned to have them here and I will hang many of them. They are rather large, many of them. Not huge, but over 24” by 38”. Some are more like 3’ by 4’. 

So what I do, I just go over and photograph part of the painting, and that becomes what I show as a work of art to go with the words I write. Hopefully, the art and the words go together. They don’t have to. But, of course, meshing them together forces them to be together. 

I like this procedure very much. Again, here, I am moving in the direction of spinning plates, killing two or more birds with one stone. Although I’m not delighted with that saying. I love birds. They are delightful creatures. Little dinosaurs. What other way is there of saying this? Address two needs with one action. That’s what it is. So, let’s not kill those birds. That way, I don’t have to use a cliche to say what I mean. 

Now, one might feel I am over extending myself, trying to do too many things at once, multitasking to my detriment. It could be that. But it doesn’t have to be that. It depends on the energy with which one does the spinning of said plates. Is this a desperate action? Or is it a work of craft? I don’t feel that multitasking should get such a bad wrap. It can be a good thing, depending on how it is done. 

These pictures I am taking, they are abstracts. That is what they get me. And I like that very much. In fact, these pictures that I am taking make me of a mind to make some abstracts. I am inspired to do so. 

I must be taking pictures of my art. One has to do a good job with that. I can get by sometimes with a shot of the phone camera here and there. But I also must take pictures with a decent camera. This, in service of the art and to sell it. Like I said, I am the best person to sell my work and to manage it. So, on a good, clear day, I am outside with my Canon Rebel and backdrops and a tripod, and hopefully, someone to help me, but not always. 

And as I take pictures with my nice Canon camera, I think to myself that I would also like to take some pictures with my camera and actually do it in a way to make art. I have different ideas of how to do that. I don’t really like the idea of taking pictures of everything I see. I’m not like that. Talk about stretching oneself too thin. But, now and again, I can make some wonderful imagery with the camera. One thing I can do is put my sculpture together with my paintings. That’s nice. I like the way that looks. I can also just take shots of places in my studio. I had a client do that recently. She took a picture in my studio and shared it with me. It looked abstract. It was of some of my scraps and parts of sculptures I have yet to make up on a shelf. The way she took the picture, it looked like an abstract. She was on my wavelength.I didn’t use her picture. I might have. It might have been a good idea to do that. I may work in tandem with my clients in a direct way that way in the future. I may get them to be more a part of what I am making. I would also like, in the future, to work with other artists. That’s always nice to do. 

Anyway, I like the idea of walking about my studio and taking candid shots and turning that into art. The thing about making art. When you are doing it all the time, well, you are doing it all the time. That’s why I loved martial arts. It was another way to make art. It was a way to exercise and make art at the same time. 

Well, that’s the process section of this little blog post. It is turning out to be, the blog post, kind of like a little newspaper type of thing. It has sections. That’s easy enough to do. Because I’m wanting to get 3000 words a day blog entry if I can. that’s spectacular, if I can do that. Kind of a long blog entry. But you don’t have to read it all. I don’t read the whole newspaper. I scan it and read articles I like. Maybe one day I will actually write the blog so it looks like a newspaper, is laid out that way. i don’t really have time for that now. But, in the future, if I live long enough, possibly. 

Bad and Mediocre Ideas (Like These Ones)

Well, looky here. I need a new section. What will it be? Will it be about art, or writing and literature? Will I later strike-through such meta stuff? This musing openly, like the rock band who sings “Where do we go? Where do we go? Where do we go from from here?” Meta. Yeah. Terrible. Shouldn’t be in a blog. Right? Who wants to read such crap? Really. Who wants to reads some self-referential meta crap? I might strike-through it later. It is a little too process-y. 

There is something to be said for thinking on one’s toes. There is also something to be said for having a plan. Even if it is a small plan. Like, I don’t have to actually write bout thinking about what to write. But here’s the thing. I once read this book on how to write and how to get good at writing, and the book actually does advise to write this way if you don’t know what to write, just to get you writing. So, if you don’t know what to write, you just write, over and over, I don’t know what to write. Maybe I will think of what to write, but I don’t know right now…. That kind of massive crap. It’s like telling someone to go take a massive crap. And sometimes you have to do that with art and with writing. Yeah, you do that, but you don’t have to share it. The book didn’t advise that. 

I have gotten two paragraphs into this section, and I still don’t know what this section is going to be about. i may think in the future about all the sorts of things i may write. I may make a list. That would be a good idea. Why don’t I try that? This is now three paragraphs in that I haven’t said anything and probably wasted someone’s time if they read this. Well, it is a blog. And it’s an art blog. This is a lot of words to have to strike-through… 

I actually have a great idea for a book. I’m thinking of some notes I put down and some things I could talk about, but I will save for later. Anyway, the book is Really Bad Ideas and Mediocre Ones. Perhaps this section falls into that category. I think it does. Okay, so that’s a new section. I won’t write this section every time. But it is a possibility, especially when I need some fluff to round out my word count. 

Hey, look. It is way better than some ai crap. You know that stuff is all over the place. Can Google spot it? I’m going to Google that right now. I Google everything. Obviously, it can, to a certain extent. It may be possible to hide some of that. But, you know you can fool some of the people some of the time… How did that saying go? Lincoln. Right? You can fool some of the people some of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can’t fool all of the people all of the time. Who cares? These days. I don’t want to get political, but I wonder about how Trump got into office the first time. 

Now, I did get a little political. And I am sure I have some people who support my art who also support Trump. I’m sorry. I just don’t see what anyone sees in a man who is convicted for rape and other crimes. But, mainly, the rape. I know Biden has done some shady things in that respect as well. To be honest, I don’t have faith in today’s politicians. I think the whole two party system we live under in the US is a shell game, anyway. I vote for the good cop, the democrat because he is going to do less damage. Less damage to the environment, for one thing. But it doesn’t stop there. 

Okay, so that’s another bad idea. Talking about politics in a blog where I want to support my art. Yep. This section is moving right along. The bad idea section. The strike-through most of the words or all of the words under this section section. 

On the positive, I think it is incredible that I actually thought up another section for writing my blog and that I did that while writing. In part, I write this blog to prime the pump so I can write other stuff.  I will say, though, that I know very well that words, just putting down content, day after day – writing, and not cutting and pasting together things, actually writing, that will amount to something. Yes, sure, this section is one of the more boring sections. That goes without saying. Hey, even that, I shouldn’t have said. That last sentence was pure fluff. Terrible. 

But the point is made here. Ideas come when you write. You just have to write. It works, instead of just sitting there. There is something about the way the fingers work upon the keys. That’s how I do it, typing. 

I took a typing class, once, in high school. Later, after I had forgotten how to type, I taught myself how to do it again. I could be faster, I know. But who the hell cares. I write fast enough. I look at the keys. Big deal. It works for me. 

Typing class in high school reminds me of a story. I will save that for later. That’s the thing about writing. You do it, you get ideas. You just do. And one idea leads to another, and another, and another. 

Sigh. End of section. What a relief.

Writing Prompt/s

This last part is a little trick I like to do. It is a writing prompt. Today’s writing prompt is a sentence that came to me, and image – yeck – actually, that came to me. The writing prompt is this:

Let us shed our flesh. 

That’s the sentence. You can make of it what you will. It’s gory. I will give you that. Good for a horror story. Or, it doesn’t have to be gory. It can just mean that we die. Here is an alternative to that sentence prompt. It came to me as I verbally wrote it down in my phone. The phone translated what I said a little differently. Here’s the alternative:

Lettuce shed our flesh.

I will grant you, that’s interesting. Lettuce is shedding flesh. One does not think of lettuce doing that. But here I think of lettuce shredding flesh, which is different from lettuce shedding flesh. Well, that’s yet another writing prompt.

Lettuce shred our flesh.

You must admit, these are good prompts. And they are all yours, if you want them. As Mike Myers used to say, “Talk amongst yourselves. I will give you a topic.” Yeah, those are my topics for today. Weird topics. Horror topics.

You know what Margaret Atwood would do in a writing workshop? She would tell her students to write a Red Riding Hood story from the point of view of being inside the wolf. So, writers cannot shy away from tough subjects, or gory ones, or horrific ones.