A PRETTY GENERAL SUBJECT

I’ve been bouncing between the commercial side of life and the art side of life. I love them both, but given the choice, well, there’s a lot more creative freedom on the art side of life. Of course, there’s probably a lot more self criticism too.

While the art side of my life is part of my profession and while I’m thrilled and humbled at the same time for the works displayed in town, besides submitting work to art shows, there’s not often much call for it. Art is somewhat finicky. But yet, it keeps coming up when I think there’s little business for it.

I’ve recently had two requests to display work in local venues (which will be announced at the time of their hanging), and I’ve had two requests for charitable donations of my work. When people are asking, that’s an honor.

The latest request came from the local chamber of commerce asking for a silent auction donation for the Annual Awards and Chamber Gala. They had previously asked for a silent auction donation for another event. That piece (The Door) auctioned to a woman who decided to provide feedback.

On a side note here, artists can be quite needy. We sit in our little comfort zones, be it in front of a computer screen or a canvas or a sketch pad, or behind a guitar or a camera, and our work is our baby and we want the world to ooh and aah our baby. We’ll never tell anyone this. It’s our dirty little secret. So when Anne (thank you, Anne) sent me a note about the response of those she gifted the photo to…well, she didn’t realize the gift she gave to me with that note (or maybe she did). You can read some of it here (seriously, it's the little things in life).

The hardest part of donating or displaying art is choosing which piece or pieces to share with the world. While we artists want the world to ooh and aah, we also fear they will boo and hiss or tell us quite simply that our baby is one ugly thing. You really have to have a thick skin to be an artist of any kind. The problem is I know what I like, but I don’t know what or if someone else will also like it. So it’s a tough choice. I try to stay local (and general) on things like this. Okay, I pushed it a bit with The Door. The Door comes from the Pushing the Edge gallery, which is my gallery for total fun; darkroom madness. I personally love that photo. I don’t know if it’s the memory of discovering the door itself, the fun I had with personalizing it or what, but I’ve always liked it and thought it a bit too far off for someone else to like. Then I show it (originally at Eileen’s Bakery - YUM!) and suddenly I’m getting feedback.

Oh, so that’s the trick. You have to show the art to get the feedback. Kidding. While The Door is a historical building piece in Fredericksburg, it’s still a very general piece in subject matter.

I guess you could say I took the same road with the Gala silent auction. I decided to donate Cannons at Chatham Heights. It was a hard choice (it’s always a hard choice), but we Virginians love our history and I love shooting cannons (No! Not real cannons…shooting…with the camera. Real cannons make too much noise.). I wanted to donate another piece of local history, and cannons, well, in Virginia they’re a pretty general subject. Though, with a touch of darkroom magic to give it that Civil War feel, the two cannons at Chatham Heights tell their own story.

CANNONS AT CHATHAM HEIGHTS

Hope to see you at the Gala!