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8 years ago
General
Warning: this is journal is about the feelings and the internal emotional drama of an artist - so kinda introspective, self-involved, and full of just BS a person does to themselves.
So, some of you may have noticed a minor emotional melt down after Fursquared's charity auction specifically in regards to the performance of the print I donated. More specifically: I hear it did well - which is really nice - but I have insisted on not being told what it went for. No one has asked me why I've insisted on this but I kindof need to talk about it anyway - partially to deal with my own BS and partially to explain to others and myself why I have this kind of reaction whenever I donate art to a convention.
(The following paragraph is almost completely unnecessary - you can skip to the last two sentences and still get everything.)
I guess I'm going to start with a personal history lesson regarding me an art. So, if you look at my profile here, you'll see I opened this account in 2007 and actually started submitting art to it in 2013. If you check my DA, you'll see the account was opened in 2004 and a little art was posted in 2007 with a years long gap of me posting again in 2014. This sort of stuff says a lot about my artistic work ethic in that time frame and a lot about that time frame. Now, I have always wanted to be an artist. I remember back to first grade and working really hard to make some realistic and detailed art - I did not have the skills to achieve this at the time but we're talking about goals here. Now I carried on this design for my entire time in grade school (I was never a particularly good artist, mostly because I wanted to draw well but never really wanted to sit down and do the work developing those skills requires. Sure, I had good moments (won an award or two in school) but was definitely a small fish in a big pond kinda guy. When it was time to go to college, I wanted to study fine art. My mother did not approve (and after decades of experience and learning about life and my mother, I finally feel I have a good understanding of why - but that's a whole other therapy session) and after a lot of arguing I decided to pay for my own college and do what I wanted. And one semester later I realized I just didn't have the raw talent nor the disposition to carry through with that - and paying for college with a part-time job just above minimum wage without taking student loans is f***ing hard! Lots time off from school, time working, getting busy, developing a social life, self discovery, blah blah blah. Sure there was some art in the background, and then one day in 2013 I realized that despite identifying as an artist, I hadn't actually drawn anything in nearly seven years. And WHAM! it hit me: Was I an artist? Could I do this thing? Was I still the person I thought I was/had always wanted to be? How could I let myself come to this point? Seven years is a long time and I had just let it slip completely by me. - So that's kindof the cliffnotes version of stuff: always wanted to art, kindof a flake, never quite measuring up and not willing to put the work in. So, after 2013 I resolved to make art a real part of my life again (which I have generally kept to).
Much like any craft or skill you pour yourself into, most art ends up with a rather hefty emotional investment/quotient to it. And while I am generally only satisfied/happy/proud of any given work for the five minutes after it's completed (after which all the flaws become glaringly apparent) there is still an emotional attachment there. And because of that emotional attachment/baggage you get a lot of stuff artists have a hard time dealing with: criticism/critique ("that's MY ugly baby! How dare you say that!"), desire for validation ("Please look at my ugly baby and despair all ye mortals!"), rejection/apathy ("why is no one looking at my ugly baby!? Whyyyyyyyyy!?") Add into the mix a bit of imposter syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger effect and you generally have a bubbling hand grenade soup of emotional drama just waiting to blow up in your face. ("Wow.... that sounds awful. If it's that bad, why do it?" Because a) it can be and is a very rewarding endeavor: you grow as a person and your skills are always improving b) it's who you are and if you stop you are denying a portion of yourself c) it's straight up better than crack,man. The high you get when you've done something is truly epic, man, you just forget about the hangover.)
So, since I started posting my art on a regular basis, I've also be dealing with the issue of exposure. Every artists who posts stuff online wants people to see their art; they want people to comment on their work; the internet is our refrigerator and we're all children hoping people will tell us what good arters we are. Unfortunately, it can be really hard to find your audience or for your audience to find you. Over the years, the quality of submissions to internet art sites like FA and DA has been just amazing: from clearly amateur to professional grade in just a few year. And the quantity of art is just: amazing. It's really easy to get lost in a flood of simply amazing art. It's hard not to compare yourself to "better" artists and be discourage. And it's even harder when you realize there are just sooooo many amazing artists out there. Sooooo many. It's hard for a lot of good to decent artists to sort of despair when they can only get a handful of people to look at/comment/or fave their work. It's taken me years to deal with this stuff on my own and to try to align my expectations so I don't feel a constant failure when I post art and don't immediately get an overwhelming positive response in the form of view/faves/comments. (To give you an idea of how things are: I've been actively posting for roughly five years I have 149 watchers and am now averaging about 50 views, 5-8 faves, and 1 comment per post - and that is a huge improvement over last year. People just starting out have it really, really rough; unless they're a break-out success you can only really expect 10 or fewer views, maybe one fave, and zero comments for anything they post in their first year or two.) Currently I am sort of in a hard won acceptance and comfort in my place in the community: I don't expect I am ever going to be hugely popular, I am probably going to remain a hobbyist for the foreseeable future as there's not a whole lot of interest in my work and it doesn't really make money, and I don't think I could deal with either if I did become popular or successful.
(The past two paragraphs kindof explain why I don't currently advertise actively, either: I don't really feel like I'm "good enough", can't really deal with the pressures of commissions well, and don't think I could live up to exceptions (mine or anyone else's).)
So what does any of this have to do with auctions? Well, we've establish that is a thing I do because it's a part of me and anything I do generally has a great deal of emotional investment involved in it. So a few years ago, I decided to donate some of he inks I did for a local con to their charity auction (india ink on bristol board: odd sizes, original work). So, I sat in the auction and waited for them to come up and they didn't do very well. They didn't do very well at all. They ended up being batched together and going for a few dollars ($3-$7) after the auctioneer had to steadily reduce the opening bid before anyone bid on it. This was devastating. It still hurts a lot. It really says a lot to an artists when several hours worth of labor and effort sells for as much or less than the cost of the materials - and it doesn't say anything good to them. After I had enough time to calm down from that, I ended up asking myself what would have been a good number for that to go for? And I really couldn't come up with a satisfactory number there, either. So, after that I resolved not to sit in on any of my work being auctioned again. My reasoning being: If the number is too low, I'll have my feelings hurt; if it's a big number, well then I'll be all knotted up about why I as an artist haven't achieved much in the way of success and why I can't sell my art for that much. Either way it's a no-win situation for me, so I just don't engage the situation. "If it's going to hurt so much, why donate at all?" Well, I want to help the charity and the convention some, and well... I do still have enough of an ego to think "maybe someone will want this" and it'll sell for something.
So, yeah. That's what that's about. That's how I feel about stuff. And that's why I kinda had a minor meltdown after the auction.
(This isn't a plea to people to tell me my work's good or anything - on some level I know it is and I'm proud of it enough to post it for people to see; I'm really just rubbish at accepting compliments - and that's another therapy session in itself.)
Anywho! Thank's for sitting through the self-analysis and exposition journal. I know a lot of artists who go through similar stuff, so I'm not alone in getting emotionally worked up over some pretty crazy stuff. But yeah - Take care! Don't explode! and I appreciate you!
So, some of you may have noticed a minor emotional melt down after Fursquared's charity auction specifically in regards to the performance of the print I donated. More specifically: I hear it did well - which is really nice - but I have insisted on not being told what it went for. No one has asked me why I've insisted on this but I kindof need to talk about it anyway - partially to deal with my own BS and partially to explain to others and myself why I have this kind of reaction whenever I donate art to a convention.
(The following paragraph is almost completely unnecessary - you can skip to the last two sentences and still get everything.)
I guess I'm going to start with a personal history lesson regarding me an art. So, if you look at my profile here, you'll see I opened this account in 2007 and actually started submitting art to it in 2013. If you check my DA, you'll see the account was opened in 2004 and a little art was posted in 2007 with a years long gap of me posting again in 2014. This sort of stuff says a lot about my artistic work ethic in that time frame and a lot about that time frame. Now, I have always wanted to be an artist. I remember back to first grade and working really hard to make some realistic and detailed art - I did not have the skills to achieve this at the time but we're talking about goals here. Now I carried on this design for my entire time in grade school (I was never a particularly good artist, mostly because I wanted to draw well but never really wanted to sit down and do the work developing those skills requires. Sure, I had good moments (won an award or two in school) but was definitely a small fish in a big pond kinda guy. When it was time to go to college, I wanted to study fine art. My mother did not approve (and after decades of experience and learning about life and my mother, I finally feel I have a good understanding of why - but that's a whole other therapy session) and after a lot of arguing I decided to pay for my own college and do what I wanted. And one semester later I realized I just didn't have the raw talent nor the disposition to carry through with that - and paying for college with a part-time job just above minimum wage without taking student loans is f***ing hard! Lots time off from school, time working, getting busy, developing a social life, self discovery, blah blah blah. Sure there was some art in the background, and then one day in 2013 I realized that despite identifying as an artist, I hadn't actually drawn anything in nearly seven years. And WHAM! it hit me: Was I an artist? Could I do this thing? Was I still the person I thought I was/had always wanted to be? How could I let myself come to this point? Seven years is a long time and I had just let it slip completely by me. - So that's kindof the cliffnotes version of stuff: always wanted to art, kindof a flake, never quite measuring up and not willing to put the work in. So, after 2013 I resolved to make art a real part of my life again (which I have generally kept to).
Much like any craft or skill you pour yourself into, most art ends up with a rather hefty emotional investment/quotient to it. And while I am generally only satisfied/happy/proud of any given work for the five minutes after it's completed (after which all the flaws become glaringly apparent) there is still an emotional attachment there. And because of that emotional attachment/baggage you get a lot of stuff artists have a hard time dealing with: criticism/critique ("that's MY ugly baby! How dare you say that!"), desire for validation ("Please look at my ugly baby and despair all ye mortals!"), rejection/apathy ("why is no one looking at my ugly baby!? Whyyyyyyyyy!?") Add into the mix a bit of imposter syndrome and the Dunning-Kruger effect and you generally have a bubbling hand grenade soup of emotional drama just waiting to blow up in your face. ("Wow.... that sounds awful. If it's that bad, why do it?" Because a) it can be and is a very rewarding endeavor: you grow as a person and your skills are always improving b) it's who you are and if you stop you are denying a portion of yourself c) it's straight up better than crack,man. The high you get when you've done something is truly epic, man, you just forget about the hangover.)
So, since I started posting my art on a regular basis, I've also be dealing with the issue of exposure. Every artists who posts stuff online wants people to see their art; they want people to comment on their work; the internet is our refrigerator and we're all children hoping people will tell us what good arters we are. Unfortunately, it can be really hard to find your audience or for your audience to find you. Over the years, the quality of submissions to internet art sites like FA and DA has been just amazing: from clearly amateur to professional grade in just a few year. And the quantity of art is just: amazing. It's really easy to get lost in a flood of simply amazing art. It's hard not to compare yourself to "better" artists and be discourage. And it's even harder when you realize there are just sooooo many amazing artists out there. Sooooo many. It's hard for a lot of good to decent artists to sort of despair when they can only get a handful of people to look at/comment/or fave their work. It's taken me years to deal with this stuff on my own and to try to align my expectations so I don't feel a constant failure when I post art and don't immediately get an overwhelming positive response in the form of view/faves/comments. (To give you an idea of how things are: I've been actively posting for roughly five years I have 149 watchers and am now averaging about 50 views, 5-8 faves, and 1 comment per post - and that is a huge improvement over last year. People just starting out have it really, really rough; unless they're a break-out success you can only really expect 10 or fewer views, maybe one fave, and zero comments for anything they post in their first year or two.) Currently I am sort of in a hard won acceptance and comfort in my place in the community: I don't expect I am ever going to be hugely popular, I am probably going to remain a hobbyist for the foreseeable future as there's not a whole lot of interest in my work and it doesn't really make money, and I don't think I could deal with either if I did become popular or successful.
(The past two paragraphs kindof explain why I don't currently advertise actively, either: I don't really feel like I'm "good enough", can't really deal with the pressures of commissions well, and don't think I could live up to exceptions (mine or anyone else's).)
So what does any of this have to do with auctions? Well, we've establish that is a thing I do because it's a part of me and anything I do generally has a great deal of emotional investment involved in it. So a few years ago, I decided to donate some of he inks I did for a local con to their charity auction (india ink on bristol board: odd sizes, original work). So, I sat in the auction and waited for them to come up and they didn't do very well. They didn't do very well at all. They ended up being batched together and going for a few dollars ($3-$7) after the auctioneer had to steadily reduce the opening bid before anyone bid on it. This was devastating. It still hurts a lot. It really says a lot to an artists when several hours worth of labor and effort sells for as much or less than the cost of the materials - and it doesn't say anything good to them. After I had enough time to calm down from that, I ended up asking myself what would have been a good number for that to go for? And I really couldn't come up with a satisfactory number there, either. So, after that I resolved not to sit in on any of my work being auctioned again. My reasoning being: If the number is too low, I'll have my feelings hurt; if it's a big number, well then I'll be all knotted up about why I as an artist haven't achieved much in the way of success and why I can't sell my art for that much. Either way it's a no-win situation for me, so I just don't engage the situation. "If it's going to hurt so much, why donate at all?" Well, I want to help the charity and the convention some, and well... I do still have enough of an ego to think "maybe someone will want this" and it'll sell for something.
So, yeah. That's what that's about. That's how I feel about stuff. And that's why I kinda had a minor meltdown after the auction.
(This isn't a plea to people to tell me my work's good or anything - on some level I know it is and I'm proud of it enough to post it for people to see; I'm really just rubbish at accepting compliments - and that's another therapy session in itself.)
Anywho! Thank's for sitting through the self-analysis and exposition journal. I know a lot of artists who go through similar stuff, so I'm not alone in getting emotionally worked up over some pretty crazy stuff. But yeah - Take care! Don't explode! and I appreciate you!
so yeah i get that sting -w-;
don't get discouraged, the best thing you can do is try an create every day owo)9
But yeah, I enjoy your work and envy the detail you can put into something. Truly do. But, I know you don't like it, but if you want to me over to art and provided motivation, I'm can do that for sure. (I promise I won't stare at you screen.)