DILEMMA

There is much written on methods and techniques to survive financially as an artist, and I do not think I can add much more to the plethora already available. But, the dilemma artists face, at least internally, is what happens when being an artist means telescoping the importance of marketing and maintaining profit margins of the item, minimizing the soul involved in creating it?

Not to say that both considerations are not important, but everyone knows that for the sake of better profits and more largely appealing products, the soul can be greatly compromised. We have but to look, in order to see that a large part of art for sale in recent times, has the quality and appearance of having been manufactured. It is slick, polished, perfect. The purchasing public has adapted to accept that the original work they just purchased, is actually a "signed, original, limited edition of 500", and this seems to be an acceptable way to own a piece of art. This has always been an acceptable way to own a piece of art. By reproducing a single design, a lesser price can be offered than one would have to pay for a "one and only original". The expectation of paying less for art, however has bloomed to the point that many artists are now meeting that expectation by creating more of fewer pieces.

Artists are reproducing their more accessible and popular works, not by turning them out as identical replicas, but by offering the same design, each piece handmade, virtually making the work a "one of a kind" (it is nearly impossible to make anything by hand without some slight deviation). The diversity within an artist's body of work has nearly disappeared in favor of variations of the same theme, but perhaps in several different sizes or colors. Do doubt, sales are necessary and it feels good to sell and to make money, but, is it as obvious to the art buyer as it is to me, that one can't miss the fact that the work is predominately redundant?

When an artist becomes exceedingly preoccupied with thoughts of "What sells?", "How much can I sell it for?", and "How little can I spend to create it?", the work will begin to take on the appearance of all those questions. The artist, then, once compelled by the biting, urgent need to express and create above all else, becomes the progeny of the Corporate Mandate: "Your sole existence and purpose is to make money"; and the sole existence and purpose of the artist's soul languishes.

Grayson Malone