One last lesson learned from this week of art shows: showmanship is vitally important.
This is such a difficult lesson! Of course, all sorts of artists will say that the creation of an art piece is the easy part. The hard part is finding some means of selling it. This is the opposite of the established graphic artist or animator, who is chained into their indentured cubicle for a life of anonymous yet steady production.
The fine artist, on the other hand, is allowed to frolic in the sun, and especially is allowed to sign their name to their work (something I really do not at all like to do). The downside is that if nobody wants your work, you starve. An artist lives or dies by virtue of their name. That's a lot of risk and responsibility.
Watching Kieth Langergraber in action really brought home for me that the artist must be prepared to sell his or her work aggressively. Patrons seem less interested in the quality of the art and more interested in its value, although in the best instances quality and value are as one.
So, I drew myself today as the ultimate art patron, Cosimo de Medici. I ripped off from Rafael's portrait by rotoscoping it, and stuck my own face on top. Rather post-modern.
I've also used the image of a restored gilded Louis XIII frame. The actual frame was worked by master craftsman Derek Halladay.
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