Comments on: desertmanhattan update

By: flashcat7

flashcat7 — Thu, 09 Oct 2008 14:10:23 +0000

This is fantastic. I’ve recently started doing a similar project (although there are marked differences). I love the overall aesthetic when you view from a distance: it’s almost like a stone surface. But when you get close you get to see the many details and evidence of human thought.
Brilliant.

By: Joe Lipka

Joe Lipka — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 14:19:32 +0000

The question is not whether or not you want to be an artist or not. The question is are you ready to run a small business where the product is your artistic vision. It’s very simple. If you want to concentrate on your art, keep your day job and do the art “around the edges” of your life. If you want to be artist, you will spend a huge amount of your time running your business and still have to do your art “around the edges.” This is the experience of many career artists I know.
What ever you decide to do, go at it full speed ahead.

By: Linda Palmer

Linda Palmer — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:18:09 +0000

It’s not really that complicated:
The split between the production of innovative work against the backdrop of it being of value to the market is the big Art crunch.
Getting to eat and make the work you want to requires a fix for the above dilemma.
(If there’s a universal fix? I doubt it very much, but on a personal level it is possible, as long as you start in the right place, which you seem to have done.)
(Good luck! Am enjoying this new big plan.)

By: Nikki

Nikki — Mon, 06 Oct 2008 01:13:21 +0000

Another artist to check out is Michelle Keck, aka “The Raw Artist.” She did it her own way, eschewing galleries and selling her art on ebay. She is HUGE now, and has quite an enterprise on her hands. And yes, now she has gallery representation. Google her and check out her story.
I too am an artist, and I know the feeling. Your comment really rang true to me. “While I was working on Desertmanhattan, the feeling that “This is what I ought to be doing; this what I was born to be doing,” kept swelling up inside me.” WONDERFUL! I’ve experienced that feeling too. And it is a treasure! Ride it out!! Regardless of how your artwork sells, or what society deems it is worth, that feeling is the reason why you are doing the work, and the rest will fall into place.
There are two things in this world that I know without a doubt that I am supposed to be doing. One of them is painting. I have in the past lost touch with that sentiment, and that is when I suffer the most. Know that it’ll all work out, and because “something in [you] is changing” you are on the right track! Trust it!
Not to get preachy, just struck a chord. Congrats, you are in for quite a ride!

By: em

em — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 20:25:58 +0000

Stormhoek is completely FABULOUS
Stumbled upon it in Tesco in today.
£5.99
For a wine this seductive and deeply pleasurable, it’s an absolutely bloody bargain.
Just thought you (and others) should know.
Apologies for the non sequitor.

By: Steve Worthington

Steve Worthington — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 17:24:25 +0000

You have such a great blog I have given you a Brilliante Blog award for 2008. Just love your views on creativity, cartoons and all that jazz. Please visit my blog to collect your award,
Steve.
http://www.steveworthingtonart.blogspot.com

By: Jen Z

Jen Z — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 12:21:56 +0000

Every time I come here, I always find something inspiring and soul-moving. I’m also starting to doubt the truth in the saying “Jack of all trades, master of none” The idea is really what counts, and if you have to learn to be artist, poet, author, marketer to realise your dream, so be it. Your success is what makes you the master.
I never saw a gallery show as a means to sell my work, but rather to meet the people I’m trying to reach with my art, whether the billionnaire art connoisseur or regular Joe. I work towards a goal of accessible art –art for anyone. I want people to find my work so cool, they want to carry it around with them everywhere, give it as gifts. Talk about it, sleep with it.. *ahem* are we still talking about social objects?
I’m looking forward to your book, congrats and thanks, as always, for your insight!

By: iDavid

iDavid — Fri, 03 Oct 2008 08:24:56 +0000

Let me throw the scaling thing out there again. If your cartoons could be downloaded in high resolution files, I’d personally would pay $15 a shot. Then you would be outsourcing the printing, mounting, framing and hanging to the customer. Which I would be happy to do for you or is it for me??? And yes some people would ‘steal’ them by paying once and sending to their friends. But you’ve already done the work, you may as well get a handful of 10 bucks and a spreading ‘brand’. If 20% of the people who gains a stolen cartoon want to see what else you have to offer and your blog converts 40% of them into customers buy a legitimate one then you would get more cash. Someone who likes numbers can work out how many beers it would buy.

By: Daniel Edlen

Daniel Edlen — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 23:30:40 +0000

I'm glad you're tuned into something changing in you. That's cool to be going through, and even cooler to be aware of it. Unger's story of his near death experiences was AMAZING. There's something beautiful in the fact that paintings don't scale. It reveals the value in human creativity. It can't be mass produced. It takes the time it takes. Deciding to be an artist means deciding to be wholy invested in creating, in putting ourselves into our creations. I love that. I've found some benefit in relationships with galleries. Maybe not so much for the fact that they can show my art to the walk-ins and sell a few, and certainly not for the paranoia about contracts, but more for the information they provide. I get a sense of what their customer is looking for in art. I get a sense of how to package, how to market my work, how to reach the people who will love having my art. I have loved the journey of learning how to market my work. It's been a large part of why this is exciting to me, thanks to you, Seth, Mark, Chris, and several other bloggers who have inspired me at various points. So, I like galleries for the feelers it provides out into the real world. That said, I hope my blog becomes part of my creative legacy. I put daily thought into it, sometimes choosing my painting subject based upon an idea for a post like http://vinylart.blogspot.com/2008/10/do-be-do-be-do-ec.html from yesterday. And I also don't care about art community approval. I'm doing this for me, for people passionate about music and human creativity, and for my family. Peace.

By: Josh C

Josh C — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 18:09:37 +0000

A crofter, huh? I wondered what a good word was for the position I'm always in. I use "generalist" but I'm not sure if I like it. Wrote this the other day, future-published to today, ironically the same day I read this. http://www.joshcanhelp.com/uncategorized/this-a-typical-week/

By: colin kennedy

colin kennedy — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 17:58:05 +0000

Interesting stuff Hugh. I am delighted to see you are making larger pieces of work.
I too have recently started making work again after 10 years away from it and as such have begun considering the gallery issue.
I think for me the gallery system still has a valuable part to play if for no other reason than allowing people to see the work in 3D. This may not be important for initial interest but it certainly becomes vital at a point and I think your work is subject to the same audience rigours.
Your artwork is very different from your cartoons and consequently has a massively augmented set of criteria for appreciation: things that are deeply important to you and become important to anyone who wants to buy a piece for reasons beyond investment.
I don’t know how lofty your ambition is but if you want your work to be taken seriously by anyone it will have to have a physical presence alongside other artists and within the commercial gallery system is a far more likely place for you to gain that recognition and be judged alongside your peers. (I loved the idea about the installation BTW)
I think this would boost the respect for your work and allow it to be considered beyond the context of your blog. Perhaps, rather than eschewing the gallery system because you don’t feel you have immediate access to it, you should allow your blog to gain access on your terms and from a position of strength. Surely this would allow you the best of both worlds without alienating either.
All this said you have inspired me to think about including my artwork in my blogging and maybe one day it will help me get some useful group show opportunities.
Glad to hear all’s well with you.
c

By: Ben Rowe

Ben Rowe — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 12:02:28 +0000

I think gapingvoid.com is the best gallery you’ll find, Hugh.
What you said in your last post is right — the tech/VC/Silicon Valley/Web 2.0 community are always going to be your key audience. Having an original Hugh Macloed (or even a print) on your wall is the ultimate social object.
My online art store has some pieces from Yiying Lu, including her most famous, “Twitter Fail Whale” — It’s been my biggest seller … a big hit with the geeks no doubt.

By: m

Thu, 02 Oct 2008 11:27:06 +0000

Hugh I love the crofting analogy! I think I might be a shetel peasant.
As for the gallery thing its all about getting to your market. My mother is an artist and the kind of people who like her kind of work are the kind of middle to upper class people who like going to private views. She also once did have a sell out show when we lived in a big house in SA but inviting everyone she knew to the house throwing a vast party wine was cheap there ! I was only 7 but can remember tin baths stacked with bottles and ice.
I suspect anyone who buys your work will do so because of the backstory to the creation so a gallery where one just wanders off the street probably won’t be a good place to sell for you.
Another artist using the net to make creative works in a different way is Christine Kane who is using her very popular blog to fund her next CD — http://bemyrecordlabel.com/

By: Max

Max — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 09:02:59 +0000

Hugh, What advice do you have for a struggling writer, who's working on his 1st book, but is mired in "what if this is crap?" and "what's my 'voice'... I can't find it"?

By: Cindy Stanford

Cindy Stanford — Thu, 02 Oct 2008 05:06:12 +0000

Very much liked this post.
I’m not so sure about point #4. For true art collectors who invest in art with an eye on resale value, sure. But what about people who buy art just because they like it? What about supply/demand? If you create 20 paintings a year and there’s a long line of people willing to pay >$3K for one, is that good enough, or at least a good start?
I would love to buy a print! I’d also love to buy note cards with your cartoons on them since snail mail does have a certain grooviness to it and I’d like to think anyone receiving one would immediately want to check out gapingvoid.com.
Keep on keepin’ on, Hugh. You inspire me.