Diary of an Average Artist Chapter 4

I drive over to Artrix to take my show down, previous shows here have all had at least one sale so I’m hopeful, I look for Tim the technician, He’s already taken all the work down. ‘Did anything sell’ I ask, ‘no red stickers’ he replies, I’m disappointed but I don’t let on. He brings all the work out to the van for me and I load up and drive to the studio. I’ll put the work in The Gallerie Du Grotesque and hope I get some sales for Christmas. Luckily Artrix is a free space so if you don’t sell anything you haven’t lost anything except time. And it is a beautiful big open space where the work looks great. I got some excellent photographs that I can send to bigger better galleries. I didn’t make the work especially for this exhibition, I’d be more pissed off if I had. What am I doing wrong I wonder, maybe the prices are too cheap? Maybe people just don’t have money to spend on art? Maybe the work is too big? Why do I do it? I’m not making enough money to live on from it, it if wasn’t for Tax Credits I would be starving. Should I give up art and get a proper job? I would make a lot more money, But would I be as happy? Should I start doing pet portraits?
This is why most artists give up and get proper jobs, unless you sell out and do something commercial it is very hard to make a living. The Tax Credits are changing next year, maybe I will loose them all together and then I will have no choice, so I should enjoy a last year of making work full time, put more hours in. Push it on Facebook, put more work in my Etsy shop? Put stuff on E-bay, do everything I can to make it a viable business, if I’ve not made a bigger profit in a years time then I’ll give up. Trouble is I don’t know what I am qualified to do except make art?
I go to the studio and paint into some prints, it feels really good, I’m trying to push the limits of printmaking, I’m trying to invent a new technique, layering images together, leaving ink on the plate so it’s part drypoint, part mono-print, drawing into the plate before you print it makes each print a one off. Print a collagraph layer first, so it’s under the drypoint. This is not really the point of printmaking, Traditional printmakers wouldn’t like it. But if I can perfect the technique it is going to be rich and textured.

I like to turn all forms of communication off sometimes, I was born in the days when you were not in touch with thousands of people at all hours of the day and night, the days when your friends had to come and knock on your door if they wanted to talk to you. We had 3 TV channels and only one TV between four of us and I being the child had last say into what we had on. So sometimes I turn everything off, I like the feeling that no one can talk to me and no one knows where I am, it makes me feel free, like for those few hours the world ceases to exist altogether. People do not however like it when you do this, people seem to think you should answer all their messages within a few minutes or you are being rude, people have no patience anymore. No patience and very short attention spans.
So I turn my phone, mac and ipad off, I’m free.

Millie Mollie Mandrake