I Wonder/Prelude to a Mudfish ©Beau Smith 8 December 2021 height: 11″ materials: steel, Bondo, copper, wood, paint

Here beginith the documentation of work, a considerable effort that will increase the value of the work, which will put more money in all our pockets. In this piece that I’m highlighting today it’s not only increased in value simply because of documentation of the work but because it is the absolute first piece that I am documenting this way.  Oh, I have posted a lot of pictures.  But I have not written about them in this way.  This begins the gargantuan effort, well worth cause though. And this particular piece, seeing that it is the first piece that I am documenting in this way, it’s going to be worth more. 

Now, one of the things to consider here is that each entry is going to be about, say, 1500-3500 words: a basic blog entry (note 1). So, not only do I spend all this time on the work itself. I blog about it, that is, write about it, and come up with that many words, mainly just riffing on the piece of artwork. Fortunately, I am somewhat of a yackity-yack. (Someone once in an email called me called “chatty”. Ugh!) So this should not be too, too hard for me. In fact, I think it will be fun. (note 2)

Right now I am taking a break, a short break, like 15 minutes or so, and this is how I spend my break. So I think that’s pretty productive. Right? (note 3)

One might question what I am doing. That is valid. Am I spending my time wisely? Is this a good thing to do? You know it is. I am a fine artist. Documenting the work, that’s a big deal. So, as long as the work is documented, the rest is gravy. Of course, my hope is that you stick with me and continue to read my blog. I have a lot of good things to say, and I do realize it is up to me to entertain you for the brief moments that we have together here. (note 4)

This piece… I have not hardly ever given my sculptures names before. I have let that be up to the person who buys it. They almost always name the creature. I have given my paintings names. However, I no longer paint – which, by the way, makes all the paintings of mine that I own very valuable. If someone asks me, how much can you get for the painting, I would have to say, not what it’s worth. I may have to wait awhile to get the value of my investment. But is that not true for a lot of things? (That last comment could have been a note, but I spared you.)

Stick with me here. I have a following. You becoming a follower – you simply reading this blog – increases the value of my work. Thus, I see this, what I am doing, as a co-creative effort. This coordinates with the whole documenting the work thing. If I meticulously document the work, including, in many cases, how much it sells for, that is absolutely going to increase the value of the work. And, hey, nobody but me is going to do this. I mean, nobody is going to do this with my work. They might be doing it with their own work. Many have. (note 5)

Getting testimonials: that is a similar thing. It’s all about sales. Sell, sell, sell. 

But, wait a minute here. I am not selling crap. Ok? And a lot of artists are. A lot of salespeople sell crap. This is not crap, what I am doing. 

I’m telling you, this sounds like an internet marketing type of gizmo thing, the way I am spinning it. It sounds like…

I still subscribe sometimes to marketing type bull💩 newsletters, simply for amusement. Not many of them. But here is one I read sometimes: it is written by a guy named Dan Doberman. That’s a great name. Here is how I say it:

Dan wants you to become one of his “Knights of the Roundtable”.

I love it. I am not a knight. I just enjoy the content. It amuses me. He likes to say anyhoo for anyhow. That might get on some people’s nerves. I like it. I find it funny. I have read a good many sales books in my time. I kind of like reading them. Does that make it easier for me to sell stuff? Maybe.

I knew one guy, he was in my Tae Kwon Do class when I was studying with my son to become a black belt. This fellow was – he had to be a great salesman. He was part owner of the company, and that is what he did all day, sell and manage salespeople. His opinion was that reading about selling is counter-productive. I…I don’t think that’s true. It could have some relevance to it. At a certain point, the salesperson wannabe has got to quit reading about it and hit the pavement. But, I really think there’s something to be said for taking in content – reading salesbooks and that sort of thing, and even for more than just inspiration, like, actual information. I hear many stories about how the wannabe salesman says he did not start making sales until someone took him under their wing and showed him how to do it. Isn’t that what salesbooks are supposed to do, albeit, in their small and modest way? 

I am a DIY nut. I love to read how to do it books. How to do this. How to do that. This because I tend to be self-taught. That’s not completely true when it comes to art. I, like, went to art school. Even so, an artist has to be, by the very nature of the job, self taught. So when someone says that this or that artist is self-taught – that’s maybe not the best descriptor of what they are really saying. What they are really saying is that such and such an artist doesn’t know some basic information. They have not had any training. And…I dunno. Good artists have some kind of training. I think what they are really saying is that the art kind of sort of sucks, in a way. Grandma Moses’s art does not suck. But, it kind of does, when you compare it to some of the Renaissance painters. I mean, for real. 

***

I am going to name this sculpture after one of my beloved cats, now passed: Harry. 

So, the complete name of this sculpture is Harry/I Wonder 1. The number 1 is there because this is a good design, and I will be repeating it. So, this is a first, this sculpture, for several reasons:

• 1st time I have started naming my sculptures
•  1st time I have given a sculpture the name of my beloved cat, Harry, now passed. (A magical cat, by the way.)
• 1st time I have blogged in writing about a sculpture and documented it with excruciating detail.
• 1st Froglet of this size made of steel and resin! (That’s a BIG deal.)
• 1st time I have used wood underneath the steel at the base.
• 1st time I have covered the base with Bondo (resin).
• 1st time I have given this specific coloring to the work. (The mudfish coloring.)
• 1st time I have signed it in this manner. 

How much am I going to sell this for? That’s a good question.

Let me first ask, how much will I sell these for, if I make more like this one? Let’s start there. Keep in mind this is handmade by yours truly.

I have a tendency to low ball. I want to sell my work. But I have to be respectful. I’m thinking between $350 and $500. 

Now, when I make more designs like this one, in this pose, I will vary some things – plenty of things. It will basically look like the same froglet, but it will be significantly different, and not in a bull💩 way. I talk as if the creature is alive. Yes, that is part of it. I even talk to them.

I could see plenty nice houses having such a sculpture in it, possibly in the bathroom of a very nice house. You see it, you know whoever lives there collects art. The thing about really good art: it gives you energy. You feel that when you look at it. I think my work accomplishes that. I think this design accomplishes that. I know it does. 

The guest of the nice house goes to the bathroom, not necessarily expecting anything, and suddenly, Oh, wow! Art. This looks like a nice piece of original art. Which then becomes a conversation piece. 

Oh, I saw that frog in the bathroom. I really like it. 

You do? It’s a Beau Smith. 

A Beau what? 

Smith. He makes frogs. 

See what I mean by conversation piece? 

Now, this, being the first of original handmade pieces of this design, it is not going to be $350 to $500. It’s more than that. But not too much more. I want whoever buys it to know they are are getting a deal and that it will be worth a lot of money at some point. In fact, ALL my work I hope to go in that direction. 

How many artists blog about every single piece of art? Okay, sometimes I will blog about several pieces at a time. I’m prolific. Which makes this one sculpture worth all that much more. Here I am giving attention to this ONE sculpture. Very special. You don’t know how special this sculpture is. 

I have not been working in steel for very long at all. That is too big a subject to take on in this blog right now. Suffice it to say that it is a big step and a big direction. I have been working in copper and bronze all of this time. I have not been working in steel. The steel is not as expensive as copper and bronze. That’s even why this particular sculpture is even more expensive and more valuable. 

How I managed to make something with cheaper materials be more valuable than materials that I’ve been working with that have been more expensive,  that is exactly the sort of thing that an artist does. In fact, people have asked me, why are your sculptures so expensive? And I’ve mentioned to them that they are made out of copper and bronze. And so they say, Oh I see.  But now I can say Well, they’re made out of cheaper materials, so they’re more expensive. It may not always be that way, but it is certainly that way for these early pieces.

Do I know what I’m doing? Yes, I do. I’ve tried this sort of thing before and it hadn’t worked at all. (Well, not exactly like I have done it before. I mean, I have messed around on the internet and blogged and so forth, like everyone else, to no avail.) That is because I was not who I am now. I did not know how to sell my work. There are so many different things now.  I’m a different person. I’ve been through a lot.  I have more than paid my dues. It’s not just about paying dues, anyway. It has much more to do with the kind of person you are, the kind of energy you put out there into the world. 

Look, I sell what I make, pretty much. I’m in museums and galleries and I’m collected all over the world, mainly in the United States –  but all over the world, my large frogs are in many public places. This is not a con. I don’t mind talking like a used car salesman. I’m not one. I’m an artist.  Moreover, I’m an artist that has respect for his audience and for his patrons. This is a joint venture. I’m not in this alone. So, all this stuff that I’m saying it’s actually not bull💩. 

Be that as it may,  I’m not satisfied.  I have a ways to go in my career here.  I am largely satisfied with what I create.  But I am not completely satisfied with what I’m getting for it,  even though on the surface it seems like I get good money for what I do.

I do want my work to be available to rich people and poor people alike.  My public sculpture is available to everyone for free.  They don’t get to own it,  whoever is enjoying the public sculpture,  but they do get to enjoy it –  for free, and that includes taking their picture with it, which a lot of people do.

In fact that, it’s happening every day, I believe.  Somewhere, someone is taking a picture of my art. Someone is probably posing with the sculpture, or someone is taking a selfie with my frog sculpture.

I’m a little bit famous.  I’m not a lot famous, that’s for sure. I know some people who are a lot famous, and I certainly don’t make the kind of money they do. 

*** 

This is a sturdy sculpture.  Also, it can go outside but I would not recommend that for this one.  This one is too valuable to put outside. What am going to sell it for? A thousand bucks? That sounds about right. You don’t want to spend that?  No problem, just wait for me to make some more like that. They’ll probably be half that much or even less.

 The sculpture is signed and dated.  Also a certificate of authenticity comes with it,  the guarantees with the work was made by hand by me.  Furthermore, you’ll get a copy of this blog entry to go with the sculpture. And…for this piece, I will sign the blog entry. Believe me, this is a 1st. That’s even a new bullet. Got to add that:

• 1st time I did the sign the blog entry that goes with the sculpture sales tactic. That’s a big one. A BIG one. You don’t know. 

This sculpture is going in someone’s very nice house. It will be among someone’s prized possessions. And, listen, I’m not just saying that. 

Furthermore, I’m not real pleased with the placement of the signature on this sculpture. It is too prominent. But that makes the sculpture EVEN MORE VALUABLE!!! Because I am not going to do it like that again…probably, on future pieces based on this design. 

This sculpture is the result of decades of effort – not just by me, but also by my father and maybe even my brother. Decades of creativity, innovation and labor. It is not crap. It is a great piece of art. And somebody will get this steel froglet for a steal. And if nobody buys it, no problem. I’ll keep it. Mind you I do not have a large inventory of work. I sell what I make. Maybe if I can sell my work for more, I can hold on to more pieces. I will hold on to this one, if nobody buys it. I will not sell it for less. The only other thing I would do is give it away to someone special or to a special cause. 

It is ready for someone to buy for Christmas, if they want. That’s another first. In fact, I see more firsts:

• 1st time in a blog entry I offered a sculpture for sale for Christmas, it being December – 2021. 
• If I do sell this piece, it will be the 1st time I sold a frog (froglet, actually) this size for $1000. Believe me, you don’t know how valuable it will be. Much more than what you paid.

I keep seeing firsts on this thing. First time I made toes out of nails. I guess you could call them “toenails”. Haw haw.

How about that? He comes with a joke. It is embedded in the art. It’s a conversation piece.

All that stuff is great, but…$1000. I don’t know, you say.

Well, it’s better than a banana duct taped to a wall.

It’s a sweet creature. It’s alive.

On some level, anyway.

***

Postscript

I sold it, and, I mean, I sold it relatively quickly. But I will be honest, I did not sell it for $1000. Rather, I sold it for $365. But, to be fair, I did not include the signed blog post and the certificate of authenticity. The buyer will have to do a little horsetrading with me to get that.

Will he do that? Maybe no time soon. But one day… One day he might very well do that. Or someone will.

Look, it was Christmas. I was in a giving mood.

It is going to New Zealand, BTW. Which basically means that this person actually is spending a great deal more than $365 because a package to New Zealand from the states costs, like, more than a hundred dollars.

Enjoy. I know they will.

I am a kind of inventor. That is largely my approach, especially when making a frog.

I make frog sculptures. That’s what I do. I didn’t come up with this idea myself. I got it from my dad, who also makes copper frogs. Or did. He is in his mid-eighties. I imagine he still makes a frog or two. We don’t talk much. I check up on him every now and again.

Why did I start talking about my dad? He’s also a kind of inventor. He came up with the human-sized copper frog. That is his main invention. He’s pretty damn proud of it, and he has a right to be. It is a really great invention. 

So I make these frog sculptures that my dad originated 40 years ago now. An old family recipe, kind of like Colonel Sanders. Charles, my dad, came up with that old family recipe. A retired diplomat living on Seabrook Island asked him to make a frog, suggested to him to do that, and do that he did. He never looked back, my dad. He just kept making frogs after that. This is old news. 

He is not the first guy to carve out a living making frogs, so I have been told and so I have observed. We – myself, my brother and my dad, that’s who makes these frogs – have our share of copy-cats. But then, others have legitimately found themselves making frogs for a living, copper frogs, bronze frogs, metal frogs…without copying what we do. Once when I was selling frogs in the market in Charleston, a passerby told me about another guy who started making copper frogs because everyone bought them when he made them. Well, that is what happened to us. But that does not, or should not, deter from my dad’s frog as being an awesome invention just on it’s own, not just because it is a frog, but more entirely because of how it is built, the craftsmanship and artistry that has gone into the design. It’s awesome, and has survived and thrived for me, my dad, and my brother for several decades now. 

So the thing is, if I am such a great inventor, why am I making something my dad came up with? Why am I not making my own thing? I’m an artist. I should be creative enough to come up with my own thing. Well, I didn’t. It’s a long story, some of which I will tell in future blog entries, and some of which I will leave to the imagination, and some of which I will never tell. We all have many reasons for doing what we do, and not all those reasons are privy to the prying minds of public audiences. Sorry. 

What can I say? The human-sized copper frog is a great invention. I can only add to it. Or, shall I say, the human-sized copper frog is the foundation for more invention within the realm of sculpture. I think my dad would approve of that statement, or be into it. I know him well enough to say that. I know the kind of stuff he gets into and some of how his mind works. I don’t want to know totally how his mind works, because he… Well, let’s just say he is a very private individual. Let’s leave it at that. I’m sure he doesn’t want me talking about him. I know this from prior experience. It’s a tough situation because I’m an artist. The whole thing is about expressing yourself and getting as much publicity as you can. And, well, dad didn’t like that. So let’s not go there.

He deserves more fame than he got for his human-sized copper frog invention. I tried to help him with that, and then quickly found out, knew, in fact, that was not going to work. At all. 

Here is a nice nugget for those who also make art and blog about it: The problem with Instagram and the like is that you are constantly giving away not just secrets, but energy. You know, like some writers will say, they don’t want to talk about what they are working on. They want to save that writerly energy for actually writing the damned thing. So, if all the time, you are constantly documenting the work as it progresses the moment you are doing it, well, that’s no good. That is giving everything away. So, what to do. Wait a while. Let the stew stew. Be working on something else, and then talk about the process. 

See, I, like many, got so excited in the beginning that I could share my process and that someone might be interested, that I would take pictures all the time of what I was doing. I did that for Instagram. Now I have my son commanding that ship because, frankly, it gets in the way when I have to take pictures all the damn time. I lose the energy of what I am doing. That is just one way I have, in the past, deflated my efforts. Not good. So I don’t want to do it that way. So I had to figure out a way to do this blogging thing without giving away too much and without divulging all my secrets. That’s why I say that I will at some point fabricate. On the other hand, I will also document the work. That is very important. 

I suppose if you follow my blog, you might learn a thing or two about creativity. In fact, I’m sure of it. So, one thing is, with your creative efforts, learn how to contain the energy. Don’t give away the energy. You have to learn how to do that. Keep secrets. Don’t give too much away. Set boundaries. Be careful and considerate around your energy. Don’t give way to addiction. Some obsession is ok, but addiction, no, unless it is a good addiction. Then the addiction is not as bad. I would rather be addicted to running than to heroin. 

***

Invention. 

So, when I make a frog, I am always trying new things. New techniques, new materials, new forms – ways to build a better mousetrap. Or maybe not even better. Maybe just different. 

It’s research. I do research, in the form of art, in the form of a frog. And sell it. I sell my research. 

On the surface, it may look like I am making the same thing over and over and over, just a little differently each time. But the same. Really, what I am doing is trying things out. It is a kind of improvising. Every time I do this. 

It is not quite like singing the same song over and over again. That can have its own improvisation and freshness, if you do it right. But it is different. Each time I work on a frog, I am to some degree trying to get away with doing research, not just doing the same thing every time. 

The most bored I get is when I am unable to do that, for one reason or another. 

The repetitive design or idea is the context. The context is the vessel for which the artist does research – for which the artist invents. 

If you get bored with what you are doing, such as a day-to-day job that seems repetitive and boring, recognize it as a context. Within that context, create. Change it up. Improvise. 

How to do this?

Something my father taught me and has long stayed with me: Isolate the parameters of what you are doing. Only change a few things. See what happens from that. 

If you try to change too many things at once, you will cease to learn from what you are doing. That is not always true. Sure. But it is true enough. You have got to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run. Kind of like learning how to stop. That’s the first thing you do when you learn how to ski. You get on the bunny slope and learn how to cross your skis and crunch down or sit down so that you can stop. If you don’t learn how to do that FIRST, you are liable to get into an accident. A friend of mine, when he was a kid, that is just what happened to him when he started skiing. He did not first learn how to stop, so he ended up skiing into a wall. Which is funny, a little bit, especially because he turned out ok. But it is surely bad technique. You’re not going to get anywhere behaving that way. First things first. 

So you tell yourself, I am going to ski. The first thing I am going to practice is stopping. I am only going to do that, for, I dunno, 15 minutes, half an hour, an hour… What am I doing? I am skiing. Wait a minute. I’m not skiing. I’m not skiing yet. I have to learn this stopping thing, which does not seem as fun to me as skiing. I want to ski. 

But, you see, you are skiing, when you are learning how to stop. You are isolating the variables and learning just one aspect of skiing. But you are skiing. You are learning to ski. When you become good at skiing, you can still be learning how to ski – and, if we stretch the metaphor a bit, you might also be learning how to stop, on another level. Once you learn how to ski, and then you start skiing, you can also learn how to slow down. That is also skiing. 

I daresay, the daredevils on the raceway have to learn how to slow down. What happens if they don’t slow down properly? Hey, let’s Google that. 

Yeah, so, in race car driving, it is crucial to know when to slow down and when to speed up. You can go into a curve slow, then speed up. You do not want to come into the curve too fast, then have to slow down. If you do come into the curve fast, you have to know how to slow down. 

All this shows that the creative process requires a lot of patience. Patience is easier to accomplish when you recognize the way to set parameters. It is easier to accomplish when you understand that slowing down is just as important, if not more, than speeding up. 

In fact, you can’t go fast unless you learn how to go slow. Guitar and piano players learn this with scales. One has to get proper articulation before one gets speed. Otherwise, one makes mistakes and sounds sloppy, just a muddy mess. 

Mihaly Robert Csikszentmihalyi talks about something very akin to this in his watershed book, Flow, now 30 years old. For someone to achieve a state of flow, many things must happen. One of those things is that one must set the bar just high enough to make it interesting. If the bar is too high, that’s just frustrating. You will never achieve that. If the bar is too low, that’s no fun, either. You have to learn how to set it just high enough that it will give you a challenge, but not be impossible to jump over. And this learning how to set the bar is a way of learning how to isolate the variables – not having too many things going on at one time. 

So, this process, or technique, is scientific and athletic. Scientists do it. Athletes do it. And artists must learn how to do it, or they will not make art. The art will lack vibrancy, originality, creativity, invention… 

So…isolate your variables. Within the context of that, try something new – and learn from it. And you do this every time. 

So even though every time, I am making a frog sculpture, I am learning, growing, changing…evolving. This assures originality in every piece. I get to do research and I get to make art because every piece is original. I think you can see that in most of my work. 

Because my art is original, that ensures saleability. Why? Because that is what art should be. It should be creative, inventive and original. Over the short haul, that may not be the best financial plan. But, in the long haul, for sure it is, if you want to be an artist. 

V-i-afrog? Vy not a duck? As Groucho Marx might exclaim. Or, for that matter, vy (that is, why), not any other type of animal, a squirrel or a goat or an octopus or an ant or…any number of things. Why a frog? And I say, v-i-afrog because, if you have ever seen the Marx Brothers movie, Duck Soup – no, wait a minute, I think it is Coconuts. Yes, Coconuts. Not Duck Soup. Even though the joke I am telling has a duck in it. It’s Coconuts. Not Duck Soup… Groucho Marx has the bit about why-a-duck/viaduct in that movie.

Why not a coconut? Okay, that’s ridiculous. Of course I would not sculpt a coconut. Nobody is going to buy that. Although my shrink one time suggested, hey, a pineapple, that would be good because I live in Mount Pleasant, a suburb of Charleston, SC. And the pineapple is the state something or other. Or maybe it is the town something or other. A lot of people have pineapples on their walls on the outside their homes, on the entrance way and such. This, because at one time, pineapples were valuable, and offering them to a guest was hospitable, and that’s what we southerners are supposed to be, hospitable and friendly. 

You watch. Someone out there is going to sculpt a coconut because I suggested it. 

Coconuts, however, is not the subject of this blog entry. Viafrog. That’s the subject. Which is to say, Why – a – Frog? It’s a question I often get, ad nauseum. Don’t be offended I say ad nauseum. I know it might not be a question you ask very often. But, you see, for me, it is another matter. It is a question I hear very often. Okay, so before I go on, I will give you my typical answer, as to why I sculpt frogs. 

Answer: because people buy them. It’s a niche my father discovered many years ago. My father, also a sculptor, had a patron one time ask for a frog sculpture. Charles, why don’t you make a frog? I would buy a frog from you, I think. So my father made a frog. Which this wealthy patron bought. He had collected a lot of sculptures from my father. He got me to make a painting of them, one time – so long ago, now. What, about 35 years ago. 

My father made big frogs, like, human-size. Every time he made one, it sold. So, I and my brother, we both liked that. So we also started making frogs. Family business. Not. Artist egos – not a family business. We all worked together for a very short time. Then my father worked with my brother. They worked together. But I worked by myself. 

Anyway, we all started making these large copper frog sculptures because, lo and behold, people bought them. That’s the short answer. But you must understand that this frog making, this making art by making a frog thing, has become something of a Zen koan for me. So it is not just about making something that people like to buy. I guess it is that way for any artist. They kind of become what they focus on, day after day. Have I become a frog? Maybe. Sort of. Do I love frogs? Sure, but not like some people do. Some folks are actually quite gaga for frogs. They totally love them. It’s a niche, I tell you. 

By the way, this blog entry, I am getting this information out of the way. It is just something I have to get out of the way. It is not totally what this blog is about. It may SEEM that way sometimes. I mean, if you look at all the art I have posted for the past decade or so – two decades now or more? If you look at all that, you would think, yeah, this is just all about frogs. That’s all he makes. 

That’s another question I get, quite often. Not as often as I get the other question. But often enough. Is that all you make? No. Well, yes. Well, I do sometimes make other things, but for the past 30 years, it has been frogs. To quote Al Pacino, I try to get out of it, and they pull me back in. 

I don’t have a problem with that so much now. In a way, I do. I really feel the need lately to expand my horizons. I have certainly felt that way time to time. Let’s be honest, I have felt that way a lot. Try to get out of it, they pull me back in. So this has always been a gnawing concern, just making frogs. So the question, if I am honest, is kind of annoying. Do you JUST make frogs? Well, yeah. I guess so. What do you do? Are you JUST a plumber? Do you JUST focus on plumbing? Why don’t you try, well, something different – maybe in the same ballpark, like, well, handyman stuff? 

But I also don’t have a problem with JUST making frogs because every time I make a frog, I am making it by hand. I am learning something. I am doing something different, changing it up. And, by the way, you would be amazed at how many different dishes of frog a sculptor can serve up, when he puts his mind to it. Oh, don’t get me wrong. I repeat themes. There are certain types of frogs that sell well. Okay, these are anthropomorphised frogs. That is a damned hard word to spell, by the way. A damned hard word to type, too, as you would imagine. It means a lot to me, that word. When I went to art school, that is kind of basically what I studied. I studied animation. This is back when there weren’t any digital devices to allow for easy animating. No software to speak of. We were filming with Bolex cameras. Using real film. So I was learning how to anthro – Jesus, this is a difficult word to spell and type – Anthropomorphize. There, I used the voice command and allowed the computer to spell it out for me. You couldn’t do things like that back when I w as in art school. A lot of things have changed. 

I also do not have a problem with JUST making frogs because I have learned to enjoy whatever I am working on. So, if I wash the dishes or clean the house or make my bed or pay bills or write in this blog – whatever it is, I enjoy it. That is an important skill, as far as I’m concerned. Love what you do – even when you don’t love it. Love the one you’re with. Okay, I have got to admit, I have never liked that song by Crosby, Stills and Nash. Who the hell got stuck with not having the one they wanted and so had to love the one they are with? Was it Crosby, Stills or Nash? I think, maybe Crosby. I dunno. 

If you can’t be with the one you love, love the one you’re with. Doesn’t that kind of damned stink? I don’t like that. I wouldn’t like that situation. I have never liked that song. Love the one you’re with? Because I cannot be with the one I love? And, while we’re at it, what if you are the one I’m with? You probably would not like that situation any more than I would. He doesn’t love me, not like he loves her. But, he settled for me instead, so he’s making a point of loving me – fuck you! Right? 

So, that’s no good. Either you love me, or you don’t. But, for God’s sake, don’t be pining over someone else. I don’t want that. Go do that to someone else. I’m not into being what a friend of mine would refer to as a “spare tire”. And, it’s not even a damned spare tire. It’s what you obviously don’t want, because if you are pining over someone else… Okay, I know a lot of people get caught with the rebound. But, in my short time on this earth, I have noticed that the rebound rarely gets the final say. There’s the rebound. And then someone else takes the shot. The rebound rarely gets the girl, or the girl get the rebound. Of course, I suppose you could write such a love story, the rebound working out, becoming a permanent fixture, for good or worse. But Romeo and Juliet it is not. And hell, don’t you prefer Romeo and Juliet? Okay, Okay, so they both die at the end of the story. Kind of tragic. But it makes for a beautiful love story. 

Now, if you are loving the one you’re with, that’s not Romeo and Juliet. That is something else. You could make it work, I guess. But if you ended up really loving the one you are with, wouldn’t that be the one you wanted to be with? Kind of like Titania falling for Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream. She would never have done that, but for her enchantment. So you have to get enchanted. Or enchant yourself. And…I could see how that could work. And it could be quaint. Sweet, even. 

But I tell you, I was married to the woman I loved. She died of breast cancer 14 years ago. Yes, I know. I’m sorry, too. Anyway, I have a hard time seeing myself loving anyone else like I loved her – still love her. Picasso loved one woman like that, I read. And it was not the last wife. It was Marie-Therese, (his junior by about 3 decades). His most sensual paintings were of her. No other paintings of any other women were like his paintings of her. She was also mother to his first daughter. 

How could I love any woman the way I love Anne? I do not think that is possible. 

We kind of got off track, here. Which I don’t mind. I hope you don’t, either. I mean, it is a blog. I get to do that. In fact, I might even try to do that, some. 

By the way, no, I did not remarry. There is no other one I’m with. I am celibate, by choice. Kind of a personal statement. But, I guess I will allow you that information. I love Anne. I never stopped loving her. In fact, I would recommend to those who lose loved ones: just because they die, you do not have to stop loving them. You can even love them MORE. It is possible. And it does not have to always be painful. 

So, I guess I am not into loving the one I’m with after all because I love Anne, and I am not with her. Which kind of sucks. No, it doesn’t just kind of suck. You understand. I have chosen not to love the one I am with because I am not with anyone. I don’t know where to take that thread. It has kind of petered out with my last statement. 

So, what the hell was I talking about anyway? Lucky I wrote it down. Okay, loving the one I am with, as a metaphor for liking to do whatever you are doing even if it is not what you would like to be doing. Now that I think on it, that metaphor doesn’t work so well. It is not the same with stuff as it is with people. 

I will say, if I had to wash dishes all day, I may not like that as much as making art. I am pretty sure I wouldn’t. Although…when I was a kid, sometimes I washed dishes all day when I worked in restaurants. It was pretty fun, actually, when you have the right equipment. 

Loving the one you are with, that metaphor doesn’t work the same with stuff as it does for people. And yet… You know, I must say, I did have to learn to love making frogs. I did not at first, for the longest while, for a variety of reasons. Mainly, ego reasons. Kiss the frog. That was the whole thing. I figured that out, told Anne about it. Yeah, I have to learn to kiss the frog. Eww. Over and over and over again. Until I really started to like it.

But, let’s be honest. I am making art. I am enjoying my work immensely. I do not mind kissing the frog anymore. In fact, I would not use that metaphor.

Hmmm. Seems like metaphors are just not working for me today. This is the second one that doesn’t quite fit.

So you must acquit. Okay, that metaphor really doesn’t work.That makes three useless metaphors, now. Shall we go for a fourth?

I do go on.

What the hell was this blog entry about anyway? No, I’m just kidding. I know what it is about. Why a frog? But I already told you. But there are so many other reasons. It’s a metaphor. A meta-WHAT? Not another metaphor! And not the frog, for crying out loud. Now you are messing with my income stream. 

Maybe I should skip the part about it being a metaphor. I mean, you get that. It’s a metaphor. But I actually do make frogs. And people, maybe you, buy them. So, why do people like frogs? Is it a metaphor? Probably. Isn’t everything? 

Do people like them because they are skinny and green and a little bit slimy and cute in a pudgy sort of, homely sort of way? Why do you like frogs? Maybe I will start asking my customers that. Maybe I should. 

I have met people who have large frog collections. One woman, quite impressive: everything in her house was just about a frog. I mean, really, she liked frogs. She liked me, too, I think. But I am already spoken for. I love the one I am not with but still I am sort of with her. I love Anne. (I love to say her name, and write it. I really love to write it.) I could tell you more about Anne, but I am not going to do that. We are talking about frogs. And Anne is certainly NOT a metaphor for frogs. And frogs are not a metaphor for her. Although… My son, Julian, alerted me that I am more like Miss Piggy and Anne is more like Kermit. I guess I would have to agree. Even though I am the guy, and she was the girl. 

Okay, there are other reasons why the frog, why that is the creature I make. And it is not a metaphor, the other reasons why, or, at least, some of the other reasons. But, guess what. I’m not going to tell you the other reasons right now. They are a secret. Keep reading this blog, and maybe, just maybe I will enlighten you. Suspense. Real suspense, too, because there really are other real legitimate not metaphor reasons. 

It’s a niche. Oh yeah, I said that already. Look, I don’t know exactly why it works, but it does. I know niches. There is definitely a frog niche. But it is more than that. 

I know this guy, Thomas Arvid – he actually owns a frog of mine. (I don’t own any of his original work: I can’t afford it) He’s a painter, a very successful painter, like, I mean, a $40K+ original painting successful painter. You with me? He paints wine bottles. Bottles of wine. That’s his niche. He paints wine, and he does it very well. Now, you can imagine how many people are going to go for that, someone who paints wine bottles VERY well. The wine bottles, they are usually either full or half empty. Or half full, however you want to look at it. And they are painted very incredibly. If you want a painting of a wine bottle, Thomas Arvid is your man.

So, that niche is not as hard to understand, I think. It’s like golf. Some artists just make golf stuff. There’s a market for that. Let us say that all you did was create golf art, and you were very, very good at it. There’s definitely a market for that. Hey, all you golf fans, I am the guy, or gal, who creates incredible golf art. I mean, incredible. I’m the best. Others copy me. So, you can imagine, such a person is going to be massively successful, with all the golf nuts out there. 

I know. I’ve have made a few golfing frogs in my time.

Golf holes… I was painting landscapes when I met my wife. She was living on Seabrook Island. We started living there together. Seabrook is, among other things, a golf resort. So Anne and I made the joke that I could paint golf holes and sell them. 

I was not into painting golf holes. She actually lived on the golf course. Her little apartment looked out onto the golf course. She was not an avid golfer. In fact, I don’t think she liked golf, much. In fact, I don’t recall her ever having played golf. I certainly didn’t. I think it is an incredibly boring game. 

I cannot get away from it, though. I live in a place in Mount Pleasant called Snee Farm. It was, once upon a time, a plantation. Now it is a very nice neighborhood, upscale, that’s the word for it. I inherited this home from my mother, who died of cancer as well, Leukemia. Yes, it sucks. Anyway, the neighborhood is very nice, and it has a golf course. And my mother, well, she and her boyfriend, this guy who was some years older than her, liked to play golf. I don’t know why. I just don’t get it with the golf thing. 

But I am an artist. I have made more than one golf frog in my day, and so I have to get the golf thing, on some level. I have to put my mind there. I have to feel what the frog is feeling. Because they are human-like. What’s the word? Anthropomorphic. Hard to spell. Hard to write. Even kind of hard to say. 

I have to put my mind there, so I guess I can kind of appreciate what one likes about golf. But still…it’s golf. It’s a really boring game, it seems to me. But the people out there doing it, I see them day after day. And I gotta tell you, if you don’t know already, they LOVE it. They cannot get enough of it. It’s like an addiction. I just don’t get it. 

A friend of mine loves seeing an expanse of cleanly cut grass, even though he does not particularly love golf. I’m like, wouldn’t it be nicer with some trees? I like woods. I don’t like all the trees cut down and just cleanly mowed grass like a well tailored crew cut. I’m not into that. I mean, it’s nice and all. Better than a strip mall. Better than a lot of things. But after our last president…I’ve not much taste for golf courses. Never did in the first place.

But frogs are not wine and frogs are not golf. I dunno. There is something magical about a frog. It’s not just a metaphor. It’s a fairy tale. Frogs are magical creatures. And they are creatures. I love creatures. I love animals. I don’t eat them. 

Frogs are magical, they are creatures, and they are also, the way I make them, human. There’s that word, anthropomorphic. (If I write it enough, I will learn how to spell it.) My frogs are people. But they are also animals. And you’ve got to know, or probably could guess, that is a thrill, for an artist to make something like that, especially a figurative sculptor, which is mainly what I am. 

So there you have it. They are a niche, and they are fun to make. That’s all you need to know. Of course, if you keep reading my blog, you may find out more on that subject. I will consider writing about it.

It is with great joy – and I mean that sincerely – I begin this blog, the written part of it. I have been blogging for many years as far as putting pictures of my art into this blog – basically pictures of frogs, you can see them doing all different sorts of things and different sorts of sizes that I’ve made over the years. But now what I’m going to do is a bit different than that, and even more special.

I have been resistant to doing this for a while now, mainly because I haven’t had the time. But, as with many things, you figure that a certain point you don’t have time not to do it.

Now, I have done blogs before, and I did podcasting stuff and all sorts of YouTube and all sorts of…all that stuff digitally when all of that came out, and I was excited about it like – I don’t know, a young squirrel or something. But I didn’t really know what I was doing, and I was just trying things out. The main thing that I got out of that was beautiful frog.com the website, which has gone through many iterations, and I’m sure will continue to. I tried blogging this. I tried blogging that. Blah blah blah blah. And then I quit doing all of that stuff cuz I didn’t have time because I was working too hard on my art and the basics of selling my art and blogging simply was a pastime that I could not indulge myself in. To my dismay.

But now I’m very excited because it’s time to return to this idea because I have a new perspective on it.  Well, you see, the basic thing – that is, the basic way I make money, is by making frogs and selling frogs. That’s the basic task of my life. Make frogs and sell frogs, one way or another. (Now this can be seen as a metaphor as well because making frogs it’s – yes it is a frog – but it’s also art. At least, I hope it’s art. That’s what I’m hoping to sell. That’s what I’m hoping to make. )

I wanted to be a writer, once upon a time. But life got in the way. I mean, I wrote a lot of things and I wrote a lot of books that never got published and I wrote a lot of articles that are on the web and one thing led to another and I ended up just making frogs and selling them. If you stick with me, I guess I’ll describe that in much more detail. Probably more detail than you ever want.  But, for now, all you need to know is that I make frogs and sell them,  one way or another.  But I do love to write, I must say. And so it is with great joy that I return to this endeavor and actually produce writing.

This is never going to be a book. And if someone ever wants to publish it as a book, no. I will say no, I’ll just skip to the movie. If you want to make a movie okay go ahead. (And pay me a lot of money, of course.) I won’t watch the movie. However, that’s another matter.

I will be candid with you:  I’m doing this blog thing to sell frogs. Yeah, I get to write, and I’m very happy about that. In fact, I’m overjoyed and ecstatic about it. Believe me. But the fact is, I’m here to sell frogs. That’s why I want you to read this. That’s one of my goals in blogging here. The main goal. But the fact is, I will tell you I love to write. So I don’t mind doing this at all. It’s just that I haven’t figured out how to make money from doing this. But now I understand things that I didn’t understand before because of working on my art and selling my art and just putting my nose to the grindstone in ways that I have never done before.

Because I have blogged before and because I have written so much in the past, I can do it. No problemo. Even though most of what I have written hasn’t been published…

Should I be proud or ashamed or a little or lot of both? There’s some guy that said only a blockhead didn’t write for money. (I am not going to credit him because I think the statement is pretty arrogant.) And I was that blockhead for sure. And I’m sure there’s a lot of us blockheads out there. (Me and Charlie Brown.) But, the truth is, I am writing for money now. I really am. And it’s not just for me. It’s for you, too.

Sell, sell, sell. That’s what it’s about, isn’t it? When it comes to your art. You have to do something to sell. Don’t you? Before, I didn’t realize how to make money blogging about my art. I just didn’t put it all together. I was just all over the place and for one reason or another, it didn’t work. No money from blogging. Are you kidding? Jeeze. Tell me an artist that makes money from that? Well, several, I’m sure. I was not one of them. I’ll talk about that later. I’m not going to talk about that right now. I had to get my nose to the grindstone, for God sakes. I had to put the pedal to the metal and work hard. Not play. Work. Play? No. Hard work.

But having done a lot of that hard work, now I turn to this endeavor and understand exactly what I’m doing and how to go about it. And that is truly exciting for me. Very exciting. I’m very excited. I’m not being facetious at all. And sometimes I will be facetious in this blog. But I’m not being facetious about that at all. I’m very excited, overjoyed, and I do know, not just guess, think, wonder, hope, I know that this act of blogging will increase the value of my work. I’ll show you exactly how. I’m going to explain it right now.

 See, I’m going to blog about my art. Yes. I’m going to talk some about the process itself. Sure. But I’m going to do so with the caveat that I’m also going to be documenting the work. That means that when somebody buys something, they buy something that’s been documented by a guy who knows… Well, I suppose I may be rich and famous at some point or maybe I’ll die and I won’t be rich and famous because most artists are not. To my credit, actually, I would say I’m actually a very successful artist, somewhat established. Yes, I think I can say that, at age going to be sixty in a week or so. I make enough money from my art to take care of myself and my son.  I make pretty good money.  Though, admittedly, I do work hard for it. To be expected. Right? So I know that what I am doing has a purpose. I know that the work is valuable. So that is what I am sharing.

Got to mention here that I’m not interested in having lots of wealth myself. I’m interested in money for what it can do for others. What it can do for my son, yes. What it can do for me in some ways. But I believe that life is about being selfless, not selfish. And I believe that the hoarding of wealth is wrong.  I have many dreams and aspirations…dreams to help others, dreams to help the world, dreams to help homeless people, dreams to help Ananda Marga… Regarding Ananda Marga (important subject for me), I will talk about at more depth in some other blog entry. Not yet time to do that here. 

I could not do this, what I’m doing now, before because I just wasn’t available to myself. I just wasn’t able to be successful. I would try. God knows, I tried. But now things are very different. My perspective is very changed. My approach is very much different. In particular, I am very  much encouraged by my relationship with God. 

So to tell you about why this blog is going to make me money… Oh, it’s not going to make me money like I wanted to make money from the net when it first came out. I got entranced in internet marketing, bullshit like that, and it was really crazy, really insane, and I’m not interested in that at all. That was like an alcoholic or a gambling addict. No more of that. Long gone. Lo-o-o-o-ng gone. Finally getting a breath of fresh air and not being an addict anymore of whatever. We’re all addicts of something, I’m sure. More on that in the future blogging. 

This blog is going to make money for you and me because it is documenting the work and it is going to do so in a very productive and qualitative way. I am very devoted to creating beautiful art. It is not my main devotion. My main devotion is to God. Really that’s all I am devoted to, but that plays out in different ways in life. The part of my life of creating art, it plays out there by wanting to produce something beautiful that gives people joy and makes them happy and also produces value in the way of money so that I can help others, not just myself. That’s what I want to do and that’s what this blog is about. It’s about making my art more valuable. 

There are all sorts of things one can do to make one’s art more valuable – like signing it or getting it in a gallery or having a lot of people follow you on Instagram or whatever it be. You have to do something. Right? But this is a way of documenting the work. I’m talking about its value. And that’s going to be very exciting, I think, for the people who buy my work. They’re going to be very excited about the fact that it’s documented.

***

I started making frogs because my father made frog sculptures, and I learned how to make frog sculptures from my father. And this was thirty years ago now. And now it is 2021, almost 2022 to now.

Anyway, recently a potential customer – somebody came to me with a frog that they owned from like, almost 30 years ago, 25 years ago or something, They wanted, or they thought they wanted, to have a new patina put on it. They saw my pictures of my frogs, and the patina on them was so beautiful and all – blue green on most of them. They thought they wanted that. That’s what I thought they wanted.

I have actually re-patinated frog sculptures before for others. So this was not a strange request to me.

But when when I saw the frog that they showed me, I thought, wow, okay, this is a frog that my father actually painted white. He usually didn’t do that. I usually don’t do that. Usually we treat them to a blue green patina. This was a white frog. It was painted, and some of the white was coming off. Some of the paint was cracking, and they were wondering what to do with it. I think they inherited it from a mother or aunt or something like that. Anyway, they didn’t know what to do. The paint was cracking in places. Maybe it needed a makeover.

I told them, you should not do anything to it, and if you did do anything to it, you should paint it white again. Of course, because that’s what my father originally did, and he doesn’t do that with most of his frogs. So it makes this one kind of special.

And now I have just blogged about it folks, so, you guys, it’s now history. It’s now a part of history. Because this blog is not going to disappear. If I can help it, anyway. So for some time into the future we’re going to know that frog was painted white, made by my father. His signature is on the frog. You can see when he made it. He even had named it, Toad I, or something to that effect. It’s a human-sized frog sitting on a bench, but I found it very interesting this frog that he had made because it was 25 years ago that he had made this frog and painted it white. I even I think I know where he sold it, through Nancy’s Gallery, now defunct, in downtown Charleston. So I might even get some pictures of this frog and I think I might even have some old snapshots of it. If not that one, I think I have pictures of another one he painted, that other one, bright orange. Yeah, he just pulled out the old Rustoleum and sprayed the thing down.

They asked me what this frog was worth. I told them what it would cost to get me to make something like this. I told them also that is not really what the frog is worth. It’s worth a lot more money than that because it was made by my father 25 years ago, and he’s not going to do that again because it was 25 years ago that frog was made. So I think they’re holding on to something very special. I told them if I had the money I would have bought it from them. They asked me how much I would pay them for it and I said not what you’d want for it because I would try to get you to sell it to me for less. I mean, I’m rather a poor artist. I don’t have barrels of cash lying about to spend. I told them I can’t afford to buy that frog. If I did have some money, I guess I would have, but I certainly would have dickered with them. I don’t think they should sell it to me. 

Point is, the frog is worth money and it ain’t the same frog that I make today because the frog I make today is original art just as that frog was original art, made by hand. So if you’re going to make it by hand, original art, it’s going to be worth something.  I daresay even original art that is made by an outsider artist or someone who is not well known or someone who is not even an artist for that matter, it will someday be worth something.  It just stands to reason because it becomes a part of history because it can’t be recreated. 

Moreover, these days I am even more highly valuing my time than I ever had before. For good reason: I treat every moment as a precious gift. I take nothing for granted. I do this in a way I haven’t done before in my life. So that means that when I think about making something and decide to make something and I create something, there’s a lot that goes into that. 

35 or so years ago, I remember that a Vincent van Gogh sold for so much money, more than any other painting had sold for that kind of money, millions and millions of dollars – I don’t remember how much. It was Dan Rather, I believe, who was getting a commentary from Peter Max, the painter, the artist, who said – and I remember this very well – that all art, what you buying, what you buying when you buy a painting, is the experience the artist had painting it.

I think that’s very true in many instances, that the art that you buy is the experience. It’s the performance of the experience that you buy. You get that experience, on some level.  So the valuable experience that I have, I share with you and now I’m sharing it not just through the art. I’m going to do the blog thing about it. A blogging we will go.

It’s going to make both of us richer.  It’s going to put more money in my customers pockets as well. That’s what I think. That’s what I know, as I think about that white painted frog that my customers showed me that was made by my dad so many years ago, two and a half decades ago.

When they, those folks who own my dad’s white bench frog, asked me what it was worth, I said, you can’t get the money that it’s worth right now, so don’t sell it. That’s what I told them. Don’t sell it right now, because you can’t get the money for it. It’s worth a lot more than you can get for it.

 I found one of my frogs at a consignment shop, one time. I had put some money down on it. I told the white bench frog owners about that because it was one of my father’s frogs from many years ago and it was selling for not much money at all at a friggin’ consignment shop. I put a down payment on it, but I forgot where the consignment shop was. It wasn’t near me. So I still don’t have that frog.  The consignment place has the money. But I don’t have the frog because, well, I’ve had a lot of things going on in my life, a lot of ups and downs, a lot of crazy times, and I’ve been of recent working very, very hard, so I just didn’t have the time. And I had put, like, $800 down on the damned thing. But now I do have some time because I’m making a conscious choice to slow down and make the decisions I need to make to allow my work to be as valuable and beautiful as it can be.