I guess it is probably the case with many occupations that their public image, and the basis on which most people are enticed into them, focus on a few large and positive features but somehow manage to forget to tell you about the more routine and tedious bits. Well, that’s certainly the case with art. We are all attracted by the thought of creativity and the personal freedom to pursue an artistic vision. It’s all true, but ….
I’m now picking up the pieces at the end of the two exhibitions of my work that have been running over recent weeks, and which are now coming to an end. Well: now is the time that the other side of art reveals itself. Now I have to work out how much commission the gallery is due. All of those pieces with looked so great in the gallery have to be wrapped (does anybody actually like bubblewrap?) brought home and stored. The ones that have been sold have to be consigned to their purchasers. If a client has commissioned a print then the printer has to be contacted and briefed. (Come to think of it, exactly where is that photograph which will provide the basis for a giclee image?) The greetings cards of your work which are left over have to be filed back into their storage boxes. And so on …. and so on. In short, to be an artist the sad truth is that for at least a part of the time you also really need to be an administrator and to have basic clerical skills.
The trick is, or course, to get through this phase of the job riding on the “high” of the enjoyable experience of an exhibition. Don’t put if off, because it might then start to interfere with the next phase of creative engagement.
PS. Some very odd and irritating things have been happening over the past week with the software that supports this blog. I have no t always been able to get access to it. Any mysterious silence on my part doesn’t mean that I’m sulking, or even that I am bogged down in administration. Thanks for persisting.