So I must apologize for the delay in getting the video up but life has gotten in the way of doing so. I will be working on it today and hopefully will have one good enough to put up on the blog this weekend. Always expect the unexpected!
In the meantime, I want to let you know about a short blurb I recently read on Professional Artist Magazine's website. It was about doing what you love and getting paid for it. After reading the blurb and then the comments that followed, I realized something. When we put a lot of our time and efforts into a work, artists of every kind starting out, seem to undervalue what they have done, for whatever reason. But here is the thing, if we offer what we create at a fair price, meaning not overinflated or under priced, then those that really love the work will pay that fair price. We are all the same when it comes to wanting ownership of something we think highly of, in this case our creative making. How many times have we all seen something that we just had to have because we felt some kind of connection to it, and knew we had to own it by some means and figured out a way to do so? I know it has to be at least once for us all. Why should it be different for those that love our work and should pay a fair price for the creative self we poured into our work? It is no different than if someone fell in love with a piece of jewelry, someone's music, a car, or a beautiful piece of clothing. If they love it, truly love and want it, the price will not be a sticking point. I do not go by an artist's booth intentionally to make that artist feel their work is not important. I only skip it if I can see the subject matter is not something I feel connected to in some way. The same with those that do not purchase my work, and I am glad for it. I want my work to mean something to the one that possesses it. It strikes a chord with them on some level and they value it, more than the price they paid. That is the best home I could hope it finds, and sometimes it takes a while and a lot of work to find that home, and sometimes it doesn't. There are famous artists whose work I would not want to hang in my home, not because I think they are untalented, but the work doesn't reach out to me as something I want to look at for the next twenty years. That is why there are so many artists and so many different ways to make art, especially now. We are so lucky to have so much we can work with for endless possibilities.
What I took away from that blurb after thinking on it was that like anyone that makes, whether it be a craftsman with wood, a painter with a brush, a needleworker with fiber, we each offer something significant and different and worthy of being paid a fair price for it. We put our individual DNA into every aspect of the work to make it uniquely ours and much of our time and hard work. Even though we love what we do and continue to do it regardless of reward, we deserve that reward in the end, and to shortchange ourselves monetarily, is to belittle the work we believe in.
