My recent state of affairs has led me to lose interest in art as a business…as I have struggled to make any money at my art. I have worked on furniture the past few winters, which was a complete waste of time, for there is no profit doing it, although woodworking is my true love. I do really enjoy making marquetry, and it is also my most profitable endeavor, as far as time and the cost of materials go. And I am glad that that has also been my customer’s favorite, or so it seems, as far as recent sales go.

I am currently working full-time in the antique furniture restoration business; at the Harp Gallery in Appleton. As I had worked in that same profession full-time for nearly a decade for another company, it has been what most of my time has been spent doing since I left college after graduating in 1994. I had left my previous full-time job a few years ago in the hope of doing art full-time, and I quickly found that my production actually decreased… for being in isolation is not good for the soul, nor is working alone very productive. I tend to work best when I am surrounded by activity… and as art is not a profitable business, I decided to go back to work full-time again. I am enjoying my current job…especially the people, and it is nice to be able to pay some of my bills.

I have been quite frustrated with doing commissions lately. I know it must seem to others that it would be a positive thing…being that it is a sure sale. But they make me feel as though I am forced into doing something that I don’t really want to do…which really ties my hands artistically. And since pleasing my customers is vital to me when doing a commission, they take an extremely long time, thus slowing me down even further, and preventing me from creating other works. And since they take such a long time, they end up not being profitable…especially since I never ask enough for them to begin with. They are also images that I make few prints sales from. It is for these reasons that I am no longer accepting commissions…for they are a burden far greater than a help.

Another thing that hampers me is art fairs. Being that my weekends are now my only extended free time, I can no longer justify spending my time on the road on the weekends, just to make a few sales that may or may not happen. Since just about all my artwork is in galleries, I also have a very limited amount of mostly old art available to show at them. They also take a lot of time to prepare for…making art prints and cards for weeks in advance so I have something to sell. My art gets damaged a lot. Glass breaks. Frames and matts get ruined. My whole display and all my art inside even blew away in the rain once. The weather is completely unpredictable, and I can only hope that the weather is satisfactory on any given art fair weekend. They also are very expensive to apply for, of which the fees are usually due in the off time of the winter, when money is scarce. I have borrowed a lot of money in the recent past, with the hope that the money would be made back from the shows in the summer, but I usually end up in the hole when the yearly taxes are figured out. That is why I had to go back to work full-time…just to survive.

Also, my acrylic paintings are no longer a pleasure to make, and of all my mediums, take the most time since they tend to be very precise. But of all my mediums, they are the ones that I sell the most prints of…so I know they are enjoyed by my fans. Since they are so highly valued by my fans, I will be increasing the price of my acrylics to make them worth my effort. This is fair since I have been practically giving them away all the while. It used to be that I could do an $800 painting in a few weeks. Now, the same size and caliber of painting takes me about 3 months because they are such a chore to do since I no longer enjoy the process at all. If I do any paintings at all in the future, they will only be a few large scale paintings a year, and at my own leisure, so that I can make stretched canvas prints of them…which I have had success selling. I do still enjoy doing oil pastels, but have not done much of those lately either. I have been developing a new direction and am planning on doing more oil pastels this winter. But then again I will probably spend another winter working on the commissions I do have already and not get much else done again.

I do still plan to make art. I just do not want to deal with the frustrating business aspects that are such a waste of time and money. I want to try to focus more on doing what I want to do, not what I have to do. I wish to get artwork in the galleries I am in, and I want to get my art websites a bit more updated, and hope for the sale of prints to be from those sources instead of the art fairs. I still do plan on doing art fairs, but I think I am going to limit them to a few profitable ones…especially since I have very little artwork to sell available to me, with galleries having the bulk of my work. I guess I want to get back on track financially first, and let my artwork come naturally, and at my own pace. I hope that this will make creating art fun again . Thank You.