“We want to check out everything before we buy.”  Pretty much the most honest thing you’ll hear at a craft fair – nonetheless, the unspoken part is that the customer reserves the right to buy things that they absolutely fall in love with on their first pass through.

“We’ll be back.”  We won’t be back.

“How much is this?”  I can see the price, I do not, however, want to pay the price.

“Do you have a business card?”  I collect business cards.

“Do you have a web site?”  I am very old.

And here is a list of common adjectives customers use to describe your work, and what they really mean (Note:  Adjectives not on this list usually can be taken literally).

“Beautiful” – Alone: “Beautiful”.  With somebody: “Come back and buy this for me when I’m not looking”.

“Charming” – I wouldn’t mind receiving this as a gift, but I’m not going to buy it for myself.

“Cute” – Depending on the age/gender of the customer, this can be mean either “cute”, or “unprofessional”.

“Funky” – I have no idea how to respond to your stuff, and now I’m going to back away slowly…

But, bar none, the most poisonous word that a crafter can hear is “Clever”, which translates as “That’s a good idea that I can do myself instead of buying your product”.  If a customer calls your work clever, you should pretty much smile and focus your attention on the next person, because you will not be making a sale.

So, does this mean that I make “Outsider Art”?  I don’t think so.  But then, I don’t see a hell of a lot of etching when I flip through the periodicals (as a printmaker, there’s always a little thrill in coming across another artist who shares your medium – I pity the painted, who cannot possibly share that sentiment).  Stylistically, I’m almost certain I don’t do outsider art.  I never set out to shock the audience, nor do I make any attempts to be subversive to the mainstream.  I’m not making a commentary of the state of art, or of modern culture, for that matter.

Photo Etching of my own graffiti - About as close as I get to Outsider Art

I simply create art that pleases me (and hopefully pleases others enough to pay money for it).  My art is by no means boring, but the argument could be made that it isn’t by definition edgy.

So, we’re in agreement.  I am an outsider artist that does not create outsider art.  There seem to be some irreconcilable differences here.

Outsider art is all the things that I’ve described above.  But there are mainstream artists, famous in their respective spheres, who create all those things.  I suppose they are outsider artists in the same way that one who paints abstract expressionism is an abstract expressionist.

But there is another kind of outsider artist – the more populous category – that simply holds the distinction of working in relative obscurity.  This is where I fit in.  Sure, I am far more well-known than when I blew into town two years ago, and I’ve shown art in both juried and open shows in town.  And I’ve sold art.  And I’ve collaborated with other artists.  And I’ve taught and demonstrated my craft in public forums.  But not one of these accomplishments gets me into the insiders’ club.

To reach that point, the rules haven’t changed since the Renaissance.  Not really.  To get inside in the art world – to truly be accepted – the artist still needs a patron.  Patrons can come in several forms:  They can be gallery owners or curators who “discover” the artist and bring them into commercial viability by showing their art in their galleries.  They can be benefactors – wealthy people who simply enjoy an artist’s work, purchase it, and name drop that artist to all their wealthy friends and business connections.  They can be individuals, organizations, or businesses.  They are, bottom line, the credible source that tells the world that this is an artist worth noticing.

They are good people.  They’re willing to put their name on the line for another person’s benefit.  But there aren’t as many of them as there are struggling artists, to be sure.

Workin' the circuit.

And, some artists wouldn’t want them if they were offered.  Often times, the independent spirit of your average artist chafes at the thought of being ingratiated to another person, and potentially being expected to allow that person’s influence to steer their work.

So, those artist either pass on the offer of patronage, or create art that they know will be viewed by the mainstream art world as “too avant-garde” or shocking to attract any patronage.  These are the true outsider artists.

I’m just a guy who hasn’t made it.  Not yet.

Do I consciously try to cultivate this image?  You bet I do.  Always have.  Back in high school, that meant dressing more strangely that my peers (it’s called understatement – go with it).  In college, it was easy – it simply meant that I had printer’s ink staining all my clothes.

Workin' in North Adams

But I’m supposed to be an adult now.  I have a career now.  I have to be respectable-like.  So I, of course, wear a vest & tie.

Having chosen my aesthetic, I think it important to be consistent.  I often dress in a vest & tie to work, which is simply ridiculous when you’re an art teacher at a school for emotionally disturbed teenagers.  You run the risk of messing up your clothes two ways: you could either get art materials thrown at you, or tear them while in a restraint.  I’ve done both.  No big deal.

I naturally dress this way to gallery openings and other nights out on the scene.  That’s a no-brainer.  It’s schmooze time, and people will remember an off-kilter-yet-dapper fellow like me if I dress the part.  For more formal occasions, I dress rather conservatively:  I add a jacket to my getup.  But I can’t help but wear one of my colorful vintage ties that once belonged to Becca’s great-grandfather (thanks, Carol) – so it’s never really that hard to pull the artist out of the lineup.

So far, nothing really all that incongruous, right?  What sets me apart – that extra mile that I’m willing to go, is that I dress the part in the studio, as well.  Even if I’m working alone, you won’t find me without my vest & tie.

I feel that, since I work in a medium that is now technologically obsolete, that I should comport myself in a manner that references a more civilized, genteel time.  plus, everybody looks better in a vest – I’ve know that since I got one for senior prom and was hooked on ‘em.  I positively retch at sweatpants in public, and, though I love my t-shirts, I wouldn’t wear them to work (maybe casual fridays…), so I won’t wear them to the studio.  Art is my higher calling, and I perceive it as a slight to that calling to show up underdressed.  It’d be like attending church in ripped jeans – in a totally non-blasphemous way.

...more appealing than black ink.

The other day I was visiting with friends at their store after having spent the morning in the studio, so naturally I was dressed to kill, and my hands were black as coal.  One friend said, “Mike, what  the hell is wrong with you? you’re wearing a tie & vest and your hands look like shit!  What kind of look are you going for?”  In reply, I stumbled onto one of those pearls of wordplay that we do sometimes, and I found a name for my aesthetic:  “I’ve been in the studio.  I’ve trying to cultivate an image, here:  I’m the Gentleman Printmaker.”

We’ve had great men (and women) in the course of human history, who’ve done great things, and we remember their words- not because they were particularly eloquent- but because their words matched their deeds.  I’m not talking about these people.

I’m talking about the people who said something that transcended their own lives and accomplishments, words that lived beyond them.

Up until the Renaissance, we have very few works of art with individual artists credited to their execution.  Granted, for records to survive before printing technology, when most information was passed by word of mouth would have been extraordinary.  But most artists believed that it was God’s will driving their hand, and that the self had very little to do with the final product.  Who discovered three-point perspective?  Contraposto?  The Golden Ratio?  Forced Perspective?  The names are lost to history.

I know that there are very few basic principles left to discover in the visual arts, so I’m not holding out to uncover that one missing fundamental that will revolutionize the world of art, or the world at large.  I’m not such a genius.  But I’d like to do or say at least one thing that hasn’t been seen or heard before; something that’ll endure.  I don’t think that’s too much to ask of myself.

Not everybody knows Whistler, but we all know his Mother when we see her.

But I won’t know what it is when I do or say it, or will I?  Nah, probably not.  I’ll just have to keep plugging along, creating art and writing words, so that when I’m dead and gone, the world can look at my body (of work.  Don’t be gross) and choose their favorites.

I think that nagging doubt; that constant sense that we can do more or better, is a good thing.  It pushes the artist to improve upon themselves, just as certainly as it pushes the Olympian to try and beat their previous time by 0.01 of a second.  And, ultimately, the entire human race benefits, because that smarter or faster person has entered the gene pool.  We didn’t all start walking upright at the same time…

We all look to leave behind a legacy, to make a mark on civilization- it’s a

uniquely human characteristic that’s especially pronounced amongst artists.

And sure, I’d like to be remembered, who wouldn’t?  The idea of fading into obscurity- of being altogether forgotten- offends our every artistic and human sensibility.  So, yes, please remember me after I’m gone (no, I’m not going anywhere anytime soon), at least for a few generations.  That’d be nice.  But my ultimate goal is a bit loftier:

Hopefully, someday I’ll be an Anonymous.

I am an artist.  And I’ve resigned myself to the fact that all those perriferal, non-artistic things that help an artist to succeed cannot be ingnored.  In preparation for today’s Open Studios event, I’m updating and printing out my resume.

At the risk of being overly philosophical (…me?  Never!), or possible to assuage my negative feelings towards doing such things, I try to percieve things like this as art.  Some are easier than others.  Sorting through reciepts for tax purposes is not art.  I think I need not elaborate on that.  But preparing your resume?  I’m beginning to warm up to the artistic  end of that.

Admittedly, I can enjoy it more now that I don’t need it to find a day job, and can focus on my artistic accomplishments.  But there’s still so much to consider.  Font, size, color, orientation, and that’s before we even get to content…

I could tout my skills and assets.  But I could be lying (so thinks the reader).  Or perhaps that just seems pretentious.  No, best to stick with accomplishments.  Hm.  I had fifteen pieces in this show, but it was invitational; I had one piece in this juried show, and I only have room for one on the page (remember the cardinal sin of resume writing: Thou shalt not spill over unto a second page).

Do I list retail hangings in the same section as gallery exhibitions?  (I say ‘nay’, there’s a big difference.)  Surely I don’t need to mention that I’m a working artist- I’ve got exhibitions in 2010, right?  These questions use to worry me, not I just enjoy them on the same level as a composition on the picture plane.

I suppose I’m just trying to be more zen.

RESUME.cwk (WP)

Over the last few years I’ve experimented with many chemicals in my printmaking.  Some were approved printmaking chemicals, some… not so much.  I’ve observed with a scientific eye the effects of many chemical interactions.  I’ve stored copious notes in my mind (perhaps I should write a few of the more successful ones down) on the results of pairing certain chemical compounds with certain solids, reconciling these reactions with my (if I do say so myself) not small knowledge of the physical properties of printmaking metals.

I can look at a plate and know with reasonable certainty the stiffness of ink necessary to draw the most clear image from it.  I can gauge the potency of an etching acid by taste (which isn’t hard, it simply requires a basic flaw in one’s sense of self-preservation).

I got into printmaking for many reasons:  I’ve an incurable affinity for bygone technology.  I like playing with positives and negatives in color and form.  I can fluidly work forwards and backwards (a lefty trait if there ever was one).  I find painting too immediate, but still tend to think in a two-dimensional aesthetic.

But, if my memory serves, the prospect of applied chemistry was not a ranking factor in my decision to pursue printmaking.  I barely scratched by with a “D” in high school chemistry.  I have a firm understanding of the physical and natural sciences, and the first chapter of the chemistry book, I’ve got that down.  But, like algebra, chemistry always flew right over my head.  I suppose it’s because I could not observe the chemical reactions on a molecular level (thereby truly ‘seeing’ the science), and I was just expected to take somebody’s word that an oxygen atom had just jumped off of one compound and joined another, and that’s why this beaker’s smoking.

Yet here I am.  Reading a college chemistry book for fun.  It’s truly one of the most extraordinary things that it took so long to figure out that we learn better when the desired knowledge is paired with something we enjoy.

Waitaminute!  We did know this!  We had oral tradition, we used music to teach our history, our legends, and our values for millennia.  That all ended with… let’s see… proliferation of the written word.  Yeah, that’s right.  And the major impetus behind that was… was… Crap.

It was the printing press.

Well played, irony.  Well played indeed.

So I’m no scientist.  I’ll never be a chemist.  Even if I use chemistry and a scientific method in my art.  I’m okay with that.  I’ve stumbled onto a few tricks that are paying dividends in my own printmaking in all my years of groping in the dark.

But what then am I?  Using scientific principles not for the sake of science, but to further my own happiness, perhaps bringing me wealth and fame?  Stumbling into the field of chemistry with no clear sense of direction in hopes of turning base metals into gold?  Using only the loosest understanding of physics in a vain attempt to make art that will allow me to live beyond my own finite years?

It would appear I am a Alchemist.  I can live with that.

So, good for us that we don’t need any of that nonsense.  We’re decidedly low tech here, we’ve got a few tables, a locker, a slop sink, a whole mess of hand tools, a few chemicals, ink and a press.  We’re all set.

So, that’s that.

We’ve got work to do.

By the by, special thanks to Sophie Lee over at Miss Hall’s School for letting us use their press until we can arrange for our presses to climb the mountain.

I’m sure I’m not alone on this.  And I’m sure that every artist has a slightly different formula.  Things like cost of materials, time invested, level of quality, size, number in a series, all must be taken into account.  Is it framed?  Well, that’s an extra $50.  But it always comes back to that old push-and-pull:

How much I think it’s worth versus how much I think somebody will pay for it.

Now, this formula itself is fraught with smaller considerations that have nothing to do with the quality of the art itself.  Now we must consider level of education, time spend in the industry, name recognition, and prices of previous sales.  And I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting.

But it all comes back to the aforementioned formula, since I could have been creating and exhibiting art for decades, and my work could have sold for $1500 back in 2007, before the markets crashed.  But in 2010, nobody’s paying for expensive art by local artists, so there’s no way I’m selling that figure drawing for anything over $1000.

I’ve read all sorts of articles on the subject of pricing, and all their rules make sense in a vacuum.  They’ll tell you that your prices should raise by “X” percent every year.  They’ll tell you to never, EVER give away your art.  They’ll tell you not to trade art.  They’ll tell you to- essentially- remove yourself from society (and you KNOW how I feel on this subject…).

But we- artist or otherwise- don’t live in a vacuum.

This philosophy completely ignores the markets.  And it brushes aside the networking that we all have to do as artists (especially before we create a name for ourselves).  And what the hell good’s it being an artist if you can’t make gifts for people instead of paying for them?

No, if I know somebody who entertains a lot, and is willing to put my art in their living room, you can be damn sure they’re gonna get one of my pieces.

As so often happens in life, this economic model was created by those who are not- and possible never had to- struggle to make ends meet.  It’s like when people who “started their own business from nothing” are interviewed on how they did it, and they say, “I took the $10,000 gift I got and invested it in…”  Yeah, how many of us have gotten that $10,000 gift?  And not to knock anyone, frankly more power to you, but if your parents or domestic partner are financially supporting you while you get that business on its feet, then you’re not really going it alone.

The rest of us cannot ignore the trends that affect the rest of the fiscal world.  If my art is simply not selling at the price it “should” be at, then I can either hoard my art and let it swallow me up, or I can adjust.

It’s not the strongest of a species that survives, but those more able to adapt to change.

So I’ll lower my prices if I have to.  To be truthful, I have a luxury that other artists may not.  I work in multiple media, one of which- printmaking- was designed to be more egalitarian than most other media.  So I can still follow that model for my large figure drawings, and I can adjust my etching prices to better fit the markets.

Darwin’d be so very proud of me.

We chuckled at his lack of erudition then, and sort of adopted his phrasing because it sounds funny.  But it’s also absolutely true, and profound in a “from the mouths of babe’s…” kind of way.

Art is what we do.  We can tell you who we are, but I’ve always felt that it’s up to time and other people to determine that.  So the most we can really do is say what we do.  And yes, I do see the irony of somebody who write a blog called “I Am An Artist” intoning the ridiculousness of proclaiming one’s own identity in such a fashion.

I feel like I’m repeating myself.

So, yes, I’ve been working in feverish spurts.  I’ve been deconstructing prints and assembling new composititions.  Here are a few of them:

You’ll notice some repeated colors, forms, imagery.  Obviously, some prints ended up in more than one composition.  They’re all some combinations of etchings, monoprints, monotypes, lithographs, dry points, linoleum cuts, and a few other knicknacks for good measure.  There are more, and more to come, but these five are the most polished as yet.

But let’s say, hypothetically, that I hit a wall in the studio, and I’m not ready to move on to a new medium.  There’s something else that’ll kick start the creativity every time:  another person.

The Hearth

I’ve known it for a few years, but I didn’t realize when I first started printmaking that one of the major factors in choosing this particular medium is that it’s a communal medium.  Family’s have gathered around the hearth, the kitchen table, or (for better or for worse) the TV for centuries.  Communities gather around the Church, the park or the local watering hole.  We printmakers gather around the press.  Sure, there’s the solo part of the process- the designing and prepping of the matrix (be it etching, monotype, litho, silk screening, etc…), but we always have to reconvene at the press.  Here is where ideas are shared, opinions given, and alternative perspectives are added to our art.  And if you’re low on ideas, you can be damn sure another artist will have plenty to say about your work.

I could never get into painting, and I was never sure why.  I now know it’s because I always felt isolated in painting.  That’s your space, this is mine.  I used to go upstairs to the painting department at UMassD and marvel at what a ghost town it was.  Artists in their cubicles, listening to headphones, only occasionally sharing their work for critique.

In most other media, there’s a focal point; Ceramists have their kilns, metalsmiths their anvils.  Woodworkers in a shared space tend not to have their own table saws (that’d be a pointless waste of space).

After I left college, the necessity of a sense of community became even more apparent.  When you have to carve time out of a bust schedule to get into the studio, and discretionary personal time becomes more and more rare, setting up a time and place to work with other artists becomes hugely helpful.  Not only does it guarantee you’ll be in that creative setting for a set amount of time, but it also provides for collaboration, which can not only get you out of a creative funk, but will push your art to new levels.  No artist has ever been worse off for collaborating.

No time spent in the studio is wasted.  Even if I don’t get a single usable image out of a session, I’ve at least learned what doesn’t work, so next time, I can maximize my creative output that much more.  But if there’s another person (even if they aren’t an artist.  Face facts here, people, artists don’t buy much art…) in the studio, I can ask for advice on where to take the work.  Even if I don’t do exactly what they’ve suggested, they’ve pointed me in another direction than the one that led me to that creative dead end I was at before.

Figure drawing groups are great.  Models need breaks, and those breaks create ready made intervals for collaborative critique.  Quilter’s circles?  Why the hell not?  If you’re in a shared space with other artists, you WILL get feedback.

For the Fallen - Etching

Oh, so you’re not interested in getting feedback?  Well, then, I pity you.  Your work will never evolve into something better than it is now.  And if you’re not interested in improving, then you might as well hang up your apron.  Yes, I wear an apron in the studio.  And I look damn good in it, too.