I can not express the importance of blending in with your artwork.  Matching handbags and boots are key to your success!  Are you color coordinated?  Wearing the best and latest labels?

In all seriousness, this could not be further from the truth…  blending in or copying everyone else is NOT the way to go.  To quote Fleetwood Mac (and to show my age): “You can go your own way, Go your own way, You can call it, Another lonely day, Go your own way “.   Finding your own voice and creating your own style is essential, it may take a lifetime to do it, but what else are you going to do anyway?

I go to shows all the time and sometimes am amazed at artists that are almost directly copying other artists; either following the “style” of the day or copying masters.   It makes me crazy, about 6 years ago everyone was pouring resin over their paintings and now there is an onslaught of the little monster, graffiti  style art.   Yes, imitation is the highest form of flattery, but I often wonder — aren’t they embarrassed by this sort of plagiarism?  To anyone who has studied art history even a bit, these gaffes stick out like a sore thumb.  It’s been over 20 years now, but in a print making class in college I thought I discovered this fabulous artist and pretty much directly copied it.  It was a large linoleum block and took days just to create the plate.  I showed the finished, beautifully pulled print that my classmates were in envy of, and showed it to my professor.  “Ah, you like Jean Dubuffet…” she immediately said.  My face gets red even now thinking of it.

It is wonderful to study the work of other artists that you love and it is natural to be influenced by them; one of my biggest influences is Squeak Carnwath.  But start with being inspired by others and then create your own voice, your own work that uniquely reflects your thoughts and vision.

And get the boots, you’ll create better work  just wearing them!

Remember running to the mailbox as you waited with bated breath for your college acceptance letters; back in the day of actual snail mail?  Sticking your hand in and pulling out all the letters, your fingers searching for the plump envelope.  Fat envelope meant YOU ARE IN versus the dismay with that skinny envelope which gave you the bad news – rejection.

I recently had a big disappointment for a show proposal I had put together.  It was for the ISE Cultural Center in NYC for their emerging curators program. Out of hundreds of proposals, I made it to the top ten and in speaking with them, I felt almost certain it was mine and I only had to send them a floor plan of the final art choices.  I worked countless hours and hours to pull it together and was incredibly emotionally attached to the art.  But then alas, I got that skinny envelope.

I’ve been thinking about that as I try to stay awake today, after being up last night until 1:30 a.m. hanging a show for the Anne & Mark’s Art Party (Click here for more details about the event on Saturday, May 8th – it will be FABULOUS!  Please come!!)  – a fundraiser for the Arts Council of Silicon Valley   www.artparty2010.com

Even though the space is large, I had to leave out numerous pieces that just didn’t flow with the rest of the work.  A group show tells a story and they have to all speak to each other.

As an artist, or entrepreneur, or really anything that involves competition, most of us are familiar with rejection, and learning how to deal with it.  I know lots of artists that save all their letters, I sure do.  Hey – at least is shows you are trying!  Scott always reminds me that you have to make 100 sales calls to get one deal. But still, getting that skinny envelope and the dismay of not getting into a particular show or rejected by a gallery and getting a form letter just plain stinks.

Now I’m on the other side – The Rejector.  As a curator, I have to pick and choose what is going to work and what isn’t, who I will represent and who I’m not interested in.  Yeah, many times I do get sent really dreadful, amateurish work but I also get a lot of excellent work – but it just doesn’t fit my projects.  It is really difficult for me to have to tell artists that they didn’t make the cut.  But I’m learning and striving to have more straight feedback with artists about their work and I think it’s valuable for everyone involved.  Finding out what they were thinking — like when an artist sent me a landscape painting for a show about objectifying men.  HUH?!?  That’s why explaining yourself/artist statements are so important, but that is a subject for another day.  Now I just have to put on my big girl panties and call the artists to come pick up their “rejected” work…

Hum? So I was out in the backyard with Brucie planting this years crop and trying something new and different, again. Yep, I bought into the $9.99 contraption “as seen on tv”. This WILL be the year I get great results after mediocre to poor results in the years past.

So how does this tie to art? Well when I first moved to San Jose six years ago, I had really very little experience in the arts outside of running the galley at my jazz club in Petaluma and my work experience at MoMA (NYC of course) and the Emmerick Gallery. Now, six years later, I’m on the Board of the National Women’s Caucus for Art as the exhibitions coordinator and have a major show going to NYC and have been in about 20 bay area shows each year. But let me digress….
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I get this asked of me all the time – why don’t you work in the arts?  Well, I do.  With the curating, consulting, WCA and my own painting, it’s a second fulltime job, I just don’t get paid for it – well except for the occasional sale of my non-political art.  My response to this art job question is that my day job as the executive assistant to a CEO keeps me in paint.  And it does.  I’m very lucky that I never have to think twice about the expense of my large canvases.  That simply would not be the case if I had a job in the arts.  I have a refrigerator magnet that says “I used to be an artist, but I didn’t like the starving part”.
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So I AM an athlete!  I’ve never been in a race, ever, and I finished a triathlon on Sunday.  I’ve been training for months, but in the days before the race I was in a panic.  What the hell did I get myself into?  I CAN’T do this.  Swim in the San Francisco Bay – you gotta be kidding me!!

Thinking about the swim was the scariest part, and although my friend Deborah and I were the last ones out of the water (besides the people who quit); we finished and ran out and up the ramp holding hands. In the water I kept singing “keep swimming, keep swimming” like Dora from Finding Nemo.  Then 12 miles on the bike and a 2.5 mile run – adrenaline kicked in and I sprinted over the finish line, completing the race in 1:56 where I thought it’d take me 2.5 hours.  I’m still so high about it all!!

So, but what does this have to do with art….  I keep thinking about how we define ourselves.

If you say you’re an artist, you’re an artist.
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