These days when I am in my studio painting my wife walks in and rarely comments on what I am working on. Earlier this week she walks in and I am startled by her emphatic statement, “Now that is nice!” in reference to a small still life of three pears.
Not having much luck selling my paintings on my own I figured I would give the Etsy community a try. With a slow start well in hand, I am wondering if the rest of the public is reacting to my work the same why my wife does. So rather that continuing to try to sell my more expressive work I began to try to think of a subject matter and style that might have a more universal appeal, which started with the pears.
So I have been borrowing from one of my favorite painters Wayne Thiebaud. I should probably feel a little guilty “borrowing” so heavily from him but, he said himself . . .
“I’m very influenced by the tradition of painting and not at all self-conscious about identifying my sources. I actually steal things from people that I can use … just blatant plagiarism.”
That being said I am “stealing” from Thiebaud’s colorful foods paintings. His food paintings tend to encapsulate much of what I like to think of as good old fashioned Americana, which conjures up images of diners and drive-ins and ice cream stands. For me, these paintings evoke a distilled Norman Rockwell-esk feeling, a pure uncluttered memory or daydream that is very personal, because they tend to spark memories rather than tell a full story.
It is natural for me to paint these subjects because I love painting and I love food. I plan on doing paintings of candies and cakes but I also will detour a bit into some of my own experience by doing paintings of sushi. More precisely kaiten sushi, which is common place in Japan and yet appearing more and more in other countries. Kaiten sushi is not just about the food but also the experience of waiting for just the right plate of food to work it’s way around the conveyor belt to your grasp. Just as much as I enjoyed the experience and taste of a corn dog at a county fair, I enjoy the almost roller coaster like journey of the kaiten sushi.
These are a part of a series of small scale paintings of food.
A couple of years ago, while foraging on YouTube for educational speeches and tutorials, I came across a video, Identifying “The Long Tail,” a 2006 speech by Chris Anderson, the editor of Wired.
In a nut shell, what this means to me (and other artists) is that perhaps if your work does not have mass appeal, you can still find your niche on the world wide web by offering your particular brand of art, and earn a living. The theory fascinated me then but was not enough to nudge me into action.
I recently read a New York Times story by Alex Williams titled, “That Hobby Looks Like a Lot of Work.”The story focuses on people, who sell things on Etsy.com, a market place for “all things handmade.” Some Etsy shop owners are successful and some are not. But the star of the article is Yokoo Gibran who quit her day job after opening a successful shop selling hand-knit scarves and accessories. The Times reports that she earns more than $140,000 a year knitting! But she also works 13 hours a day to keep up with orders.
It seems far from idea working such long hours but it still sounds pretty good to me. So inspired by the success of Gibran I opened my own Etsy shop this week, which was really easy to do. All I needed was a credit card and some photos of my work.
I resisted Etsy for quite sometime because I thought it would be expensive to get started. I was wrong, they do take a small percentage sales but it only cost 20 cents to list an item for 4 months. I figured I can’t lose with those kind of start up fees for a shop!
Who knows if I will see a fraction of the success of Ms. Gibran but I am going to have fun trying.
It seems that since I have been in the “land of not having a full-time job” that time just gets away from me. Each morning I get up earlier than I did when I had a full-time job and I sit at the computer doing things . . . but at the end of the day, I can’t always say what. I drink more coffee because I sleep less in my endless attempts to prove to myself that I am being more productive than before. I apply for a jobs, work on a freelance gigs, study software, work on any number or hairbrained ideas that I have, but I never get any painting or real fine-art done.
He speaks to the fact that time will get away from us unless we take control. He says that “Too much time is almost as non-productive as not enough time.”
I can’t say that I totally agree with that statement but I completely understand what he means. He says that having five uninterrupted days to do a half-day job can have us floundering to complete it.
He says that “one thing that limited time can do for you that heaps of time can’t and that is to focus.”
I am going to take his cue and do something creative everyday for the next week and post my results here. I will schedule at least a half hour to get up and away from this damn (yet wonderful) machine and do some art with my hands. I might work on an unfinished painting that has been nagging me for months or years, I might even do something sticks and mud. But whatever it is I will schedule a time, I will work and post whatever I come up with here. I may produce some true “creative calamities” in the next week, but whatever I produce, I hope it gets me into a real creative groove that continues well beyond my seven day commitment.
Every year about this time, my wife Teruyo drags me into New York City in the freezing cold to take a photo for our “family” Christmas card. Every year I moan and groan about what a pain it is and why don’t we just send pre-made cards like everyone else I know.
But after my requisite annual tantrum, I drag my butt into the city for the photos. Unfortunately, is quite apparent in the 2007 Brooklyn Bridge photo that I didn’t want to be there.
I usually do a little Photoshoping and add some text to the pictures and she takes over, after trip to the arts and craft store to replenish her supplies. Then she goes into deep focus for days on end meticulously hand making about 50 or so of these cards and hand witting full letters to send out to close friends and family.
As with so many of her ideas that I initially bemoan, in the end I am almost always happy for her persistence and creativity, even though I don’t always admit it to her.
Tomorrow we are heading out in the cold and rain for a picture in front of the Charging Bull in Bowling Green Park near Wall Street. I guess this years card will mark our year of hopes for a bull market in what we hope is the tail end of this economic downturn.
All concepts were by Teruyo except for 2005 when I took the reins and manipulated a photo I found on the Internet.
