Motivation for Making Art

[Donald Maier]

Is the motive for painting more honorable if it is because the subject  catches your eye and you feel compelled to paint it for yourself? 

Or is it because of the need or likelihood that it will sell?

There is a gentleman in our community, a very good artist/illustrator, who prides himself as being a professional artist because he has been able to support himself and his family from sales of his artwork. I must admit, I don’t know him all that well, because frankly, his elitist attitude puts me off a bit. Maybe I am being too sensitive or defensive here, since I have tried several times in the past to live off my artwork and have always caved to the pressure of putting food on the table and roof over my head. I have always kept the work art related, as in graphic designer, illustrator, or art direction in ad agencies. And I know what it is like to have pride in selling artwork, especially for a good price because I am experiencing the best year for art sales ever. There was a time when I could barely give it away. I had to leave it to my X-wifes and separate to find a new home with bare walls so I could cover them with my paintings. I joke about this and I know I should not, but thank goodness for “dry spells” or I would not know where to put all the work I have. There is just so much storage space available. Now I am painting large oils and will really be in a jam if I can’t sell them.

But my motivation for making art has never been about selling my work. Of course, I love to sell paintings. It alone is the most inspiring thing that can get you out of a dry spell and productive once again. 

In 2002 I received a check from my California gallery for around $800. They had sold a few watercolors for me out of a drawer in their gallery. I was in the middle of a six year depression where I had not painted must at all. I was actually in this dry spell because when I moved from CA to GA in 1994, I sold my big cab over camper that I used to use to go on painting trips to the Sierra Nevadas in California. My last trip was to Yosemite in January of 1994. 

Anyway, I had bought a Ford Ranger and planned to get a camper shell for the back to continue my plein air painting trips and get out of my funk. This artwork sale was the key to buying a used camper shell, and to set me off on a series of trips, first to Key West that Thanksgiving weekend, and the following year on my big three week odyssey to the Four Corners area, Navajo country, Monument Valley, Bryce and Grand Canyons. This was the start of my most recent work. I also found on an Art Gallery website, a lovely lady from Malaysia, Suzie, who is also a very fine artist. She and I are currently having a show together in Dallas, GA. She is a tremendous help to me, not only as an art critic and companion who is looking after me, but she is also doing all my framing for my Wildlife Oils in a show coming up this September in Acworth, GA. There has been a lot of things in recent years that have brought me up out of the depths to motivate me to paint and paint to my full potential. But art sales are the best. 

But I still hold to the principle that to paint to please yourself is a better motivator than to paint to sell. If you simply paint to sell, then you are selling out. Now I expect what I am saying here is a bit like Republican/Democrat or two sides of the same coin. And I am not so steadfast that I am not sure that I am being totally unfair and stupid about the whole thing. Heck, I have done portraits and commissions for people from time to time. I am not above doing a painting to someone’s specifications. John Singer Sergeant did portraits as a living, but when he could, he would take his paints, usually watercolors, and go on a painting trip to paint what pleased him.

Am I splitting hairs, or does this make any sense at all... I can’t tell. It may just be the difference between work and play... Please tell me what you think...

[Terri Williams]

I'm with you , I have only been painting for a little over a year now and I joined this site to find some people to go out and paint with . But I love to paint , that's why I do it , and yes it's great to sell something once in awhile and I had my very first sell last week , it was great and inspired me to paint more but if I didn't sell anything it would be okay because it soothes my soul to paint . And that is why I do it , but I am running out of wall space .lol

[Ed Cahill]

I too have run out  of wall space , and I have run out of my children's wall space and my relatives.They turn and walk the other way when they see me with a painting.

Fun aside, I am getting better, and I do paint more more now then ever and I do intend to paint even more than in the past. I sure would like to sell some...just to get them out the door. Now days you have to do your homework to sell art. Get out there, post it on Facebook, tell everyone you know, find a gallery, start a blog...whatever it takes. But most of all paint, paint, paint and do some drawing too. So many artist have forgotten the pencil...good painters are good draftsman.

[Terri Williams]

That's me , I need to draw more . Darn I have so many paintings in my head and not enough time , but I can take my drawing stuff to work and draw when I'm not busy with a hair customer .

[Carolyn Karch]

                                            PAINTING IS MY CALGON MOMENT. 

In skiing there are pro, expert, intermediate, beginner, and recreational skiers.  I consider myself a recreational painter. I have a stress, stress, stressful job with a unrealistic ever-increasing caseload.  timeframes, case reviews, and no chance for promotion or raises.  The young kids working with me can run circles around me.  It takes me an hour to unwind everyday when I get off.  Painting takes me away from all this.  I become absorbed with whatever I am creating, and am in a totally different world without time restraints. I'm in the zone. I prefer painting plein air, in a way it is like work.  It pushes me to get the scene as I see it before the clouds or sun change it again.  I have learned  that with painting and with work, the world changes, changes are inevitable, you just have to capture the moment in the moment.

I do not consider my art worthy to sell.  Occasionally I will have a home run, and I will frame it and hang it on MY walls. Frequently changing out the art in the frames.  The home runs are hard to part with, I can't sell them, they are an emotional part of me, a memory of a moment in my life.   I have painted a few "commissions" for friends using their reference photos.  These commissions felt like a job to me.  I took about two years on one of them, painting it over many times. (Michaelangelo spent 4 years on the Sistine Chapel) I did this because if I don't like it well enough to hang over my couch, then I can't say it is finished yet.  Perhaps it's because it isn't what I would choose to paint.  It makes me think that if I wanted to turn "Professional" would I start being concerned with turning out works that the public would be interested in, would I end up painting what I really don't want to paint?  Would I have to start meeting deadlines, and have to face REJECTION???  Would I have to kiss gallery owners asses to keep turning out paintings that are my "style"? Would I have to WORK?  Painting is creativity, creativity is marching outside of the box, experimenting, throwing caution to the wind.  Do I want that to stifle my natural instincts?

If  I painted like Clyde Aspevic, Kim Lordier, Jean LeGassick, Harley Brown, or Jeremy Lipking - heck, I wouldn't feel bad doing it for a living.  People are chomping at the bit for whatever they turn out.  But realistically, I don't have the desire to do this as a business, because I don't have the drive, or the talent.

This is the way I feel today.  Change is inevitable... ha-HA.  If someday, when I retire and don't have the cash to take a dream vacation to Paris, then I might, I could... lower my standards to crank out some commercial pieces as a way to supplement my income.  Who knows.... life is full of choices.

Great topic Don...sorry I became a bit long winded about it.

[Bruce Bundock]

Don,

 It is always great to sell your work but it should not be the sole reason why one paints. I think perhaps it has more to do with advancing a particular vision and putting something out there that simply did not exist before. Painters are transformers of experience. It seems that the consequence of making a painting is that it provides a necessary and useful connection with those who never picked up a brush but marvel at what practitioners can do with it. Paintings also help to revivify memories in the life of the viewer, or stimulate their own imaginations. This might be what prompts a person to buy a particular work. I know this to be true with work I have sold. In one case, I was motivated by a scene at a very popular annual paint out. It was purchased at auction and a week later I received a grateful e-mail from the buyer who said the scene I painted was exactly where his father had often taken him for walks when he was a child. His father passed away, and he now had become a grown up, but my painting had brought back a flood of wonderful memories

and he had to have it. I was quite moved and validated at the same time, long after the money from the sale was spent.

regards, Bruce Bundock

[Donald Maier]

To the contrary, good content, good wind usage. Not sure what Calgon is... I am thinking bath oil?

Carolyn Karch said:

                                            PAINTING IS MY CALGON MOMENT. 

In skiing there are pro, expert, intermediate, beginner, and recreational skiers.  I consider myself a recreational painter. I have a stress, stress, stressful job with a unrealistic ever-increasing caseload.  timeframes, case reviews, and no chance for promotion or raises.  The young kids working with me can run circles around me.  It takes me an hour to unwind everyday when I get off.  Painting takes me away from all this.  I become absorbed with whatever I am creating, and am in a totally different world without time restraints. I'm in the zone. I prefer painting plein air, in a way it is like work.  It pushes me to get the scene as I see it before the clouds or sun change it again.  I have learned  that with painting and with work, the world changes, changes are inevitable, you just have to capture the moment in the moment.

I do not consider my art worthy to sell.  Occasionally I will have a home run, and I will frame it and hang it on MY walls. Frequently changing out the art in the frames.  The home runs are hard to part with, I can't sell them, they are an emotional part of me, a memory of a moment in my life.   I have painted a few "commissions" for friends using their reference photos.  These commissions felt like a job to me.  I took about two years on one of them, painting it over many times. (Michaelangelo spent 4 years on the Sistine Chapel) I did this because if I don't like it well enough to hang over my couch, then I can't say it is finished yet.  Perhaps it's because it isn't what I would choose to paint.  It makes me think that if I wanted to turn "Professional" would I start being concerned with turning out works that the public would be interested in, would I end up painting what I really don't want to paint?  Would I have to start meeting deadlines, and have to face REJECTION???  Would I have to kiss gallery owners asses to keep turning out paintings that are my "style"? Would I have to WORK?  Painting is creativity, creativity is marching outside of the box, experimenting, throwing caution to the wind.  Do I want that to stifle my natural instincts?

If  I painted like Clyde Aspevic, Kim Lordier, Jean LeGassick, Harley Brown, or Jeremy Lipking - heck, I wouldn't feel bad doing it for a living.  People are chomping at the bit for whatever they turn out.  But realistically, I don't have the desire to do this as a business, because I don't have the drive, or the talent.

This is the way I feel today.  Change is inevitable... ha-HA.  If someday, when I retire and don't have the cash to take a dream vacation to Paris, then I might, I could... lower my standards to crank out some commercial pieces as a way to supplement my income.  Who knows.... life is full of choices.

Great topic Don...sorry I became a bit long winded about it.

[Donald Maier]

Having started this discussion and saying that I paint for myself, I am now questioning that very concept. Here is perhaps a better question: If you could not show anyone your work, would you still paint for yourself alone? I am not sure what my answer is on this... I know that I paint what I want, but I think I do it for validation by others, starting when I was 10 years old to impress my parents. Maybe it is a personal thing that varies greatly from artist to artist?

I used to front a few bands, telling jokes and having the spotlight on me, and frankly, I liked it, but I know artists, who are introverted and very shy. I am thinking that their take on this is very different. But of course, we probably won't hear from them.

Bruce Bundock said:

Don,

 It is always great to sell your work but it should not be the sole reason why one paints. I think perhaps it has more to do with advancing a particular vision and putting something out there that simply did not exist before. Painters are transformers of experience. It seems that the consequence of making a painting is that it provides a necessary and useful connection with those who never picked up a brush but marvel at what practitioners can do with it. Paintings also help to revivify memories in the life of the viewer, or stimulate their own imaginations. This might be what prompts a person to buy a particular work. I know this to be true with work I have sold. In one case, I was motivated by a scene at a very popular annual paint out. It was purchased at auction and a week later I received a grateful e-mail from the buyer who said the scene I painted was exactly where his father had often taken him for walks when he was a child. His father passed away, and he now had become a grown up, but my painting had brought back a flood of wonderful memories

and he had to have it. I was quite moved and validated at the same time, long after the money from the sale was spent.

regards, Bruce Bundock

[David Freedman]

Hi Donald

It is always difficult to pinpoint the reasons why we do anything let alone something as complex as creating a picture...as often they are  multifactorial and some factors are more important than others and  may change from day to day.

My father was a professional artist but we were always very poor and when as a teenager I announced wanted to follow him he became very angry and advised me to take up a profession that payed the bills and to paint as a hobby if i must ,,,,,it was good advice

So I have only sold a couple of my paintings in my life and I paint mainly simply because i enjoy the challenge  and find it a fun thing to do... I think no more justification than this is required.

Just to be outside in the landscape is great and always  I hope to improve ... we all want to be better than we are and it takes a great deal of practise to paint in plein air with any confidence . I always look forward to the next painting and hope it will be the best painting I have ever done............ and I say this to myself every time i start .. But when it is pathetic i always look forward to the fresh hope of the next one....Just like starting a new hole in golf.

regards,

David Freedman from down under.

 love your site Donald. 

[Donald Maier]

I can relate the the new hole in golf. That's a good one. Say, if I lived in Hawaii I would want to be outside all the time painting too. Is the flower lay required or optional?:)

[David Freedman]

Hi Don
The lay was given to me by the hospital staff after working as a volunteer general surgeon in Vanuatu for 5 weeks .I haven't been to Hawaii but I'd love to go there one day . I found it is hard to paint in the tropics as all the shadows are very dark and it's so hot and humid. My watercolours all went moldy
Regards
David