Real Art Is Real Important

"Real" art is real important, and not the mass produced stuff people buy at TJ Maxx or Walmart and that sort of thing. I'm all for (local) American artists and art bedazzling the art buying world, and putting a dent in the big corporations using sweatshop labor in 3rd world countries to produce cheap "decorations". Not good to the slaves who work there. Not good for us either. Maybe I'll borrow and modify our President's slogan to "Make American art great again."

Sometimes I think it's good for people to see what an artist uses to produce their work - like a tiny brush with about a dozen hairs on it (as in my post from yesterday). Or what the studio looks like. Or some of the problems that come up while struggling with the layout for a certain piece. You need to realize that we may go through dozens of sketch ideas before settling on something that works and can be developed into a final work. People need to understand that while BEING an artist is just how it is for some of us, we don’t like being taken for granted either, as far as the DOING. It’s our work too! And we’d like to get paid for it, quite frankly. It’s what our Creator fashioned us to do. We have to take ourselves seriously, since not a lot of people really do.

Let’s see... here are some things that give that “taken for granted” impression.

“Art isn’t that important to me as an artist. Other things take priority over it. I do art when I have time for it.” (What, after the football games, the TV shows, and watching the news?) It’s really too bad that some very talented people marginalize themselves like that.

“Art is for decorating the rooms in my house. It’s just part of my decor. But it’s not the centerpiece of my living area.” Then by all means proceed to Walmart and support your local corporate sweatshop. I would not want to see my painting in your living room one week, and the following week discover it for sale at the local Goodwill. But then, you’d never buy my painting, since you don’t really care for real art, do you?

Recently someone contacted me via my website (https://yvonne-blasy.pixels.com/). She’d found a drawing I did a long time ago. It was in a land far, far away with my signature on it. She wondered how old it was and provided a snapshot, and sure enough it was a black and white graphite of a lighthouse I drew probably 25 to 30 years ago. I had no idea how it had arrived at its destination, but she revealed to me that her grandmother was cleaning out a vacated property and had unearthed the drawing. I’ve puzzled over this ever since she contacted me. I thought it was interesting for a stranger to take the effort to do that. She said she loved lighthouses, so I told her, “Consider it yours.” It was nice that someone valued what someone else discarded.

These are just a few Sunday night rambling thoughts coming over the wires of the creative wavelength this evening. If you’re an artist, take yourself seriously. If not, please take us artists seriously.

Thanks, and have a creative and colorful week!