I’M AT HOME, sitting in my studio with my laptop. I’m surrounded by paintings in various states of completion. Sometimes I paint over the ones that aren’t going anywhere, or didn’t sell. I’m reminded of a fellow abstract artist I used to know in town who painted over the same canvas six or seven times until he got something that would sell. You could tell because he’d sign the back of the painting, and then cross it out, and sign again in a different place each time he repainted the canvas. I found myself doing this once or twice when I got stuck. It’s a useful way to recycle your canvas and save money. It’s bad if you keep a detailed inventory system, because you have to keep going into your database and delete old paintings out of the system.
Luckily, my inventory system consists of nothing. I don’t have an inventory system.
I’m getting some engagement from the public on my blog posts. This both fascinates and terrifies me—knowing that people are out there who are reading my stuff. I think this was my therapist’s plan. To get me to open up about stuff that’s happening to me. To talk about my mood and my feelings about the state of things.
My mood is fine, thank you. To all the commenters telling me to “hang in there,” thanks. I’m fine. But thanks.
And to all the commenters telling me I should “kill myself,” go find someone else to bother. That kind of shit doesn’t work on me.
But this does bring up an interesting idea. The idea that maybe I, as an artist, should have some kind of web presence. At least, some kind of social media presence so I can send out memes and overshare to all my three followers. Maybe an art website, so I can actually advertise the pieces I have for sale. I bet they would start selling again. Usually when I’m in the news, the sales spike for a couple of weeks. A website might just allow me to keep up that kind of momentum without having to get shot at.
It’s definitely something to think about.