Sorry folks; two weeks of business/family travel have made it impossible to update the blog as frequently as I'd like. I'm hoping to do better during the Summer.
Today I'm wondering about artists who sell their works to whatever company copies them a million times, frames them in aluminum, triple mats (three colors too) them and then sells them to mid-priced business hotels nationwide for their breakfast rooms. Is it somehow satisfying to see your work Mr. or Ms. Sohnan (that's as close as I can figure based on the sig) on so many walls? Does the money you earn allow you to do "real" work or are you now addicted to the cash and cranking out more of the same to the detriment of your art? Or are you really proud of this work; this nearly paint-by numbers stuff that I have to stare at while eating toast from a machine used by thousands of other people? Perhaps you can honestly deduct the cost of trips to Italy or France for "research" or plein air work?
I don't know. It's pretty bland stuff sir or maam. Just saying...
Today I'm wondering about artists who sell their works to whatever company copies them a million times, frames them in aluminum, triple mats (three colors too) them and then sells them to mid-priced business hotels nationwide for their breakfast rooms. Is it somehow satisfying to see your work Mr. or Ms. Sohnan (that's as close as I can figure based on the sig) on so many walls? Does the money you earn allow you to do "real" work or are you now addicted to the cash and cranking out more of the same to the detriment of your art? Or are you really proud of this work; this nearly paint-by numbers stuff that I have to stare at while eating toast from a machine used by thousands of other people? Perhaps you can honestly deduct the cost of trips to Italy or France for "research" or plein air work?
I don't know. It's pretty bland stuff sir or maam. Just saying...
posted by crionna at 11:00 AM
3 Comments:
The problem isn't the number of copies made. It's the quality of the art. I know an interior designer who did a lot of work for hotel chains. He told me that the goal was to make rooms comfortable and inoffensive. Thus the propensity toward beige and schlocky faux-Impressionism.
comfortable and inoffensive.
Fair enough I guess (and true, based on my observations). I'm sure that somewhere lurks a spreadsheet that contrasts the cost of loudly printed wallpaper vs. flat paint and these works of "art".
I had a designer interested in my work (clocks and photography). They had a big gig with a resort/spa. No surprise all they were interested in was how cheap I would sell my work to them. It felt horrible to have my work liked and then chewed down to nothing price wise. The struggle for me to get my art out there sometimes wears me out to the point of wanting to give up. I can't imagine selling out though, I'll live on my credit card before I mass produce mass market and fill the world up with redundancy.
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