Artistic Flow   Because reality is only an illusion

I was born and raised in the small town of Port Angeles Washington. It is a tiny place that was once a booming timber industry town. Nowadays it is a run down and poverty stricken place.
It has never been an art friendly place. If you talk visual arts in this town you are most likely talking about poorly executed landscapes created by retired people or stay at home housewives that bought a paint set last month.
The more cultured folk in Port Angeles have usually visited SAM maybe once or twice in their lives. Besides that, their exposure to fine art is limited to whatever nineteenth century master works are being sold as posters via Walmart. Lack of education, exposure, and general knowledge I think have created a lack of interest.
Oddly in this anti-art town there are quite a few artists. People like myself who are visual artists, writers, composers, a couple photographers with amazing skills… but, we don’t show, promote, or sell here. If anything we keep it hush hush.
Just down the block from where I live is a couple for example who both write for a living. One almost exclusively writes freelance magazine articles for many different mainstream publications. The other is a fiction writer. They both are successful full time writers, but I doubt if even a dozen people who live here know who they are.
If people did they would most likely be met with scorn. They know this. I’ve talked with them about it. In my isolated little town success is met with a sort of misplaced disdain.
If the guy who works at the gas station gets an article published he is met with enthusiasm. To have written for a living going on twenty years however is not something people here can relate to.
The same goes for visual arts.
Though I have lived here for more than two thirds of my adult life and was raised here I do not sell art here.
I stopped even trying back in the early 90’s. They don’t have money, they don’t like art, and they don’t like me in particular.
Only in the last couple years via social media targeted to locals have I even really shown much of what I do.
The internet has changed everything. I haven’t had a broker or agent in years. I self promote online and show in themed gallery shows. The competition is fierce because anybody can sell via the internet whereas in the past it took a combination of great skill, perseverance, and luck to get your foot in the door with a rep or even a single gallery.
Now if you paint every third Sunday for three hours at a pop you can sign up with an art promotion site of your choice and your work will show up next to the professionals. That didn’t used to be a possibility before the internet. Because the person makes their living as a waitress, beautician, mechanic, banker, whatever… even if the painting cost them a hundred dollars in materials and took them twenty hours to complete they can sell it for a hundred and fifty dollars which earns them a whole $2.50 and hour (not including the time to photo, crop, upload, and promote the work) which makes them feel oh so awesome that they sold a painting and made a profit.
We who earn our living through art however can’t do that. I have a family to support. $2.50 an hour won’t buy my food and keep me off the street.
You may think “if they make such a small amount of art it can’t compete and hurt the sales of full time people that much,” but because it is so easy to get your stuff out there now it has become the bulk of whats available. Especially with the POD sites like RedBubble and Society6. I’d guess not even one percent of the art on those sites is from professional artists. The more fine art focused mainstream sites like Fine Art America I’d guess have about 95% hobbyists pushing their art.
The game has changed.
I’m not complaining though when it comes to what the internet has done. I actually find it a good thing that people can sell their art through websites like those mentioned above so easily.
I hated the elitism and bullshit of the game before the net changed it.
Selling art through what was once the only channels (commercial art or fine art) used to leave a bad taste in my mouth. That is why I love blind juried shows. The bigger the better. It is more of an equal footing. Though juries are subjective and if affiliated with the show in a way that gives them profits often influenced by sales potential it still allows for a sense of accomplishment to have ones work selected out of hundreds or even thousands of entries. It is fun.
Plus… being able to see the creations of hobby artists is awesome. I spent years studying and working with professional artists of all different sorts, but I’d say I have been influenced by the random hobby artist works I have seen just as much over the last few years because of the internet.
Art I’d have never been able to see before.
Anyways… back to the local thing.
This year via my not very followed Facebook page which Facebook so easily lets me target towards a local crowd, and via my also not very followed Instagram which is owned by Facebook and also allows a bit of local targeting… I have almost broken my records for local art sales this year.
I set up both my Instagram and my Facebook in 2014 with the idea of showing a tiny bit of what I do primarily to the local people because I have become a huge hermit.
Because I have never gotten much local give a shit about my art I was expecting ZERO difference in sales.
I should probably note that when I am talking local and sales I am talking Clallam, Jefferson, Kitsap, and Mason counties within Washington State.
That is basically the NW tip of Washington.
Anyways… yesterday I took a painting commission from a local. If I’d had even one more commission this year I’d have matched my previous record of commissions for locals which was back in 1992. That is a long time ago. If I had sold two more paintings or original drawings (non commissioned) to locals I would have matched my sales record of original artworks to locals which was from 1996. The only reason I did so well in 96 locally is that I had a guy who lived and worked in Bremerton (which is in Kitsap county) “borrow” a bunch of my stuff for his walls and had it for sale that year. I say borrow because it was primarily for temporary studio decor, but happened to be for sale. That was a good gig because he took no sales commissions. 🙂
All of this local love (still not even 5% of my yearly sales) I blame on area targeted social media. I kinda wish I’d started with it earlier.

“Not Royal Academy, I suppose. Still better than a finger in the eye, ain’t they?”
That little quote was from Bert in regard to his artwork in Mary Poppins if you didn’t catch it.