The unglamorous side of art
Besides all the painting and the drawing and the showing, there’s the far more “unglamorous” side to the art business. There’s the shipping. There’s the ordering. There’s the updating of the website. And there’s the ever present, ever dreaded mailing list.
I did actually paint today. You know, for about an hour or so. Long enough to throw another layer of paint on the board, scrub it off, add another layer, scrub it off… you get the idea. At the end of that time, the painting had simultaneously advanced and started to pull apart, which I guess is how I paint. I stopped working on it with the idea/ excuse to let it “set up overnight”, which pretty much just allowed me to walk away from it this afternoon. Tomorrow is a new day, right?
Last night I organized photos. Tonight we updated the website. Tomorrow, well, there’s a mailing list to add to (shudder), more photos to organize (I’m trying out a new system as the whole “throw them in the filing cabinet” isn’t working anymore, as we have no more room!), paintings (and a drawing) to finish, and I still have to figure out what to do about this big stack of canvases by my desk. The house needs to be swept, the bathrooms cleaned, the laundry done… I’m exhausted just thinking about it.
How do other artists, heck, even other people who don’t create art, do it? I’d love to know.