Art Content creators have to help themselves! Proposing a collective work to get more visibility (And Steemarket Art Contest #3 - Submit your art and win 20SBD!)
After a little pause, here is again the Art contest linked to Steemarket, the web showcase to sell and buy artworks using SBD
But I'm not going just to launch another edition of the contest. I would encourage artists to help themselves, as a community.
Steem Art Community is great already, but I think it needs to grow more and give to artists more opportunities to show (and sell) their artworks. We have to sell our art. The rewards we get from Steem are a great chance for artists to get some money from their work, but it can't be enough.
Steem is a great network, still growing up; we art creators have to use that network and all the part of the Steemverse that is slowly being formed. The Steem company is not going to invest for that. It is clear enough, so far.
Artists are mostly selfish. I know that. I make art since 1980, and I'm in the Art world since 1990. We have to fight our selfishness and create a collective source of alertness and focus.
How? Think about it, let's think about it as in a brainstorming.
My first proposal is to create an unofficial guild. No upvoting trail, just sharing the posts of other artists you like. Do you want a name for it? Let's take something like "Art team".
My second proposal is to create a database of opportunities for exhibitions, sales, contests all around the worlds. We can put it on Steemarket.com and share it. Or somewhere else.
What do you think? What do you propose?
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Ok, now the contest.
In the past editions, SAC (Steemarket Art Contest) received really amazing submissions from the great community of artists on Steem: here are the artwork of #1 and #2.
So, here it how it works:
- All artists on Steemit can submit their artworks from today to Sept 27, Wednesday, h 11pm GMT.
- Each artist can submit 1 artwork for each of the 3 categories of the Contest
- The categories are
- Painting and Drawing (not digital)
- Digital Art
To submit an artwork, each artist has to:
- make a post containing "SAC" (Steemarket Art Contest) in the title and#sac in the tag
- publish in the post a photograph of his submitted artwork/s (at least 1000px for the longest side)
- indicate category, title, size, date and technique of the submitted artworks.
- paste the link to his posts in the comments of this post.
Winners and Prizes: The winner of each category will be chosen by my wife @silviabeneforti and me. Winners will receive 10 Steems (or more, it depends on possible sponsors ;) ) and will be published in a promoted post.
Votes and comments to submitted artworks will be considered in choosing the winners
The results will be posted on September 30, Saturday
* Please, share this post to other artists! *
Great initiative.
As you say Artists are notorious for not wanting to become part of any collective idea or movement but there are reasons for that. Artists tend to have egos with some being larger than others. Some can have personal agendas to steal the light for themselves - thus creating the problem of artists not getting involved in such things in the first place. Artists are often their own worst enemy because their own egos let them down.
For ideas to work together they must be prepared to put aside their egos.
However I feel the world of art is ripe for a change.
The art world/market is in a limbo at the moment with no real direction of where to go in the future. This means that the time is ripe for new initiatives and ideas. Online places such as Steemit can be part of this change but the problem is that no one really has any real vision. And even someone did or does, they would probably be frightened of sharing it for fear of it being stolen from them and left behind.
I used to know Damien Hirst many years ago. He actually started the "Freeze" movement in London back in the 1990s. He worked his ass off so that unknown artists, as well as him, could show their work. Artists who could not get into any f the London galleries. The freeze exhibition was a huge success and is today one of the biggest art events every year. All the artists of the first exhibition were successful except for Hirst himself. He felt bitter and let down. He became selfish in his thinking not wanting to help other artists anymore. Today he is the richest artist on the planet. Thus his example is not encouraging for artists to work together. Such is the society we live in today. Art is in crises because society is in a crises of selfishness and greed. Art and society go hand in had in my view.
So how can we change this?
It will not be easy but it is possible.
Step one is to find a way for artists to not only support themselves but each other without the fear of themselves losing anything or feeling left out.
Personally I like the idea of artists upvoting each other as way of supporting each other simply because as artists we understand how difficult it to live as an artist. Non artists have no idea the sacrifices artists make when choosing the life of an artist. They have no fixed income and as such live a life of constant uncertainty. Every artist has to be very brave living entirely from faith and belief in themselves and their that their work is of value. If non artists stopped to ask why artists even bother to create art, when they could instead just go out and get a job, then they might get closer to understanding why art is so important in civilisation. Civilisation without art would be like the sky without birds.
The problem today is that people have lost sight of the real value of art. They believe that artists have a nice life of sitting down when they want and paint a pretty picture. In modern times, the public believe they dont need art believing instead that what they need is money. And they need money because there is a need for security. Since 2008 people no longer feel secure. People look at art as only for the rich or as something to look at and say "ah that´s nice, that´s pretty" - but don´t ask me to pay for it. I can use that money to buy a nice meal in a restaurant instead. In modern times food has taken over art. This was the very reason why Mark Rothko killed himself. He felt art could never compete with the belly. I am generalising of course but all artists know what I say is true.
Back to upvoting -I would be in favour of a kind of art guild set up to support artists here on Steemit. Collective voting can be a powerful thing to help support struggling artists as well as established ones.Let´s face it a vote does not exactly come out of our own bank account but instead creates steem.
A lot of steem aimed at one artist can go a long way. Many are against guild type organizations but it could be done in a positive way if thought through and all could agree on values and principles.
I generally try to support artists on steemit and actively look for them in the introducemyself and art tags. I have been an artist my entire life with a good art education, many years in the advertising/graphic industry as well as exhibiting in galleries around Europe. I can spot a fake from 100 miles away. So can any decent artist. Artists know good art when they see it and this is what I am willing to support. When I see good art I am never envious or jealous but instead full of admiration for the artist fly the flag of quality.
It is this that I am interested in supporting. Quality.
What I look for is honesty and integrity in art because truth will always be more powerful than cleverness. Try to be clever and you only give yourself away.
Over the last 20 years the art market has lost sight of quality in favour of popularity. I want to be part of a reversal of that situation.
I applaud your efforts and understand your meaning and motivation.
thank you very much for your comment, Arthur. I agree with your analysis - I wrote something not so different a few months ago (and I'm still working to complete it, if ever I will be able to).
This kind of analysis is also similar to the one William Gaddis did in his last book, "Agora, agora". But times have changed from when Gaddis wrote it, and his pessimistic point of view could change too.
The only thing I believe for sure is that artists have to work together. Of course I understand the wish to become rich and famous, at least a bit. We artists live in incertainty more than any other man, and that's hard. Money and fame are the soothing.
But things are changing. Not in one or a few years, but I can see the change coming. (Decentralization is somehow something going in the same direction, I could say.) I hope to can see that change.
But now, can we do anything more than making our art and talking and writing about it?
The Art Market is a big business, and it won't let anything change it till there is money to earn. Even Street Art - something that could be really different - has been swallowed by the Market...
But let's stay in the topic: a Steem Art community. I really would like to be part of it and help to create it. A free guild, not working by delegation of voting power but by the active partecipation, could be a new, different way to help each other as artists and to share each own's work.
Honesty and integrity are really needed in it.
And I'd say also that mutual, sincere appreciation is needed: that means that there can no be just one group, but more that one. No one should be forced to appreciate and support an artwork he thinks it's garbage, or simply he doesn't like.
It can happen if at least some of the good artists that are on Steem accept to work for it.
Otherwise, this is just another post that will get its reward and will pass.
100% agree. At least a discussion has begun and that is a good first step.
Personally I have abandoned any ambition for fame. I survived a serious life threatening illness 3 years ago. Ever since then I live each day as a gift. Materialism and fame are meaningless to me now but of course I respect others right to have dreams and ambitions. However, I do have a desire to be part of restoring integrity back into art. I agree that a new decentralised future will certainly have part to pay. I think the answer will come. We have a saying in Norway "The path is made as you walk it".
If you wish for any help or participation in future projects or plans, please count me in. Thank you for taking the time to write back.
It's difficult to overcome artistic ego. I also suffered with my own ego many times. The only remedy is a friendly collaboration, and STEEMIT is a really good place to work together. Do not be a professional secret to each other, for example how to use brushes. Every artist is different, so each of them applies the same technique differently. Envy is a way that kills creativity! There are no "bad artist" here, everybody has an own speciality. Although I'm not so good at drawing realistic things, I feel I'm good in "souldoodling" and mandalas.
I agree, artistic ego is difficult to let go of. It took a serious and painful illness for me to learn how to do that. I was ill for over a year confined to a bed and in chronic unbearable pain 24 hours a day. All I can say is that it was a humbling experience. When you survive such an ordeal there is very little fear left in life. I lost all envy of others and became very grateful to have my life back. It is only now that I feel I can truly begin to create something "real" from within rather than an ego trip or wanting or be the best artist in the world and all that bullshit. Steemit is on a decentralised blockchain as are all crypto currencies. These ideas, as well as the "sharing economy" are changing the world. Sharing is the future and big egos just dont fit into that concept. In my recent blog I wrote about this, how 12 quantum scientists decided to put aside their egos of wanting to win a noble prize and instead work together to see if they can crack "the theory of everything" - what is reality. Suddenly mathematical problems that have had scientists stuck for the last 30 years are being solved quickly. Some of their recent discoveries are astounding. This is an example of how the future will be. Sharing gets results. Why are we so obsessed with being the big star? Art will go down the same road. No one knows just how that will work just yet, but I am certain it will happen.
I'm really loving this thread between you two. We are all more powerful when we come together and share our passions. I believe when we do it for common purpose to support and encourage, our motivation is far more clear than when we strive to get recognition or financial rewards. Working together is much more important to me than being in competition -- that is the major catalyst and success of the Collaborative Art Journey. I think it's a huge BONUS that we be blessed to share our works and simultaneously be compensated, which provides us opportunity to continue creating instead of dumbing down our passions to make ends meet.
I love what your inspired to create @paolobeneforti. Upvoting and resteeming this post....let's raise some awareness!
I'd also like to mention that @roelandp is providing us an art space at Steemfest2 so if we have things to share there, it might be worth brainstorming about. @skapaneas has started the steemit-team chatroom for discussing possibilities for that art space. He has not been active there recently and I have been unable to reach him, but if you'd both like to join us it would be fun to throw some ideas around....
https://steemit.chat/group/steemit-team
EDIT: @arthuradamson I see you are not on SteemitChat by this screen name. If you are interested (rather going to SF2 or not), is there some other way to reach you?
Hi @everlove.
Glad to hear your thoughts on this.
I feel a new kind of Art guild has the potential to be quite revolutionary as way for artists to support each other, freeing up artists to be be more creative in a more honest way. This can then bring back the true spirit of what art is really about. The brilliant german art critic and philosopher Jan Verowert said;
"The art student creates art because they have no boundaries placed upon them. They have freedom to experiment without the constraints of a profit driven society. Then, when they leave full time education, they then start the process of trying to become "professional artists." I so agree with him. The pressure of trying to make a living and pay the bills can distort our intentions and motivations.
Art is not about selling, it´s about having something to say that´s worth telling.
Artists supporting artists in the spirit of artists simply creating honest art is something that is of great interest to me. A Guild set up with this spirit in mind could be revolutionary. Blockchain platforms such as Steemit can make this possible. As Steemit grows and the price of steem rises, the shared income could be huge free artist from this burden. And the wonderful thing about this is that no one single person would be able to control such a guild because it is decentralised. Art is changing and anyone who is open to new ideas or indeed has a vision of how art can evolve in this new decentralised world can benefit from it as well as being part of taking back the art world from the super rich elites. Art was never meant to be a status game. The super rich have in effect hijacked art and made it into a game only the rich can play. By doing this, in my opinion, they have contaminated the natural evolution of art. Rather like misguided genetic scientists tampering with human DNA instead letting nature take its course.
I will have a look at the SteemitChat and the Steemit-team chatroom. You can always contact me on Steemit as will be more or less checking in at least once a day now. I dont use "Busy" so much but I think it is possible to chat on there also?
A terrific reply @arthuradamson!!! I couldn't agree with you more. My uncle is one of the creative genius' for Macy's in NY. I remember him telling me when I was considering college for art that once art becomes a job it can change radically the way you engage it. I took that to heart and skipped the schooling to experiment with life. And oh how thankful I am that I didn't try to manipulate or control my expression, but let the free form of experience be my inspiration. I've never had to make a living making art, but just do art and if someone feels it and falls in love with it then I am grateful to share.
I don't quite understand the guild logistics, but I'm all about the cooperation, collaboration and support. Would love to know more about heading in that direction!
Glad you may join us in Steemit-team chatroom. How do I contact you on Steemit? Just comment on one of your posts?
Hi @everlove, thanks for the reply. Sound like you made the right decision about how you chose to create art. I believe that your way of looking and approaching art is more truthful/honest and the future. Things will not change easily though but they must if art is to play a part in the development of human consciousness. But there are practical boundaries to over come first. And that is financial security and stability. Once this is achieved then we go from there. This is what I am looking into. You can contact me on one of my posts or I have a few gmail accounts too. A common one I use is [email protected]. I check this every day. Thanks for the interest. I intend on looking into more detail of how a guild could work and then I will contact you on one of your posts or on Steemi-team chatroom when I get a chance to look into that. Laters...
I love exchanging with you @arthuradamson. Seems we have much in common!
I truly believe in, and live the saying "Do what you love and the money will come!" A passion driven life leads to abundance, health and well-being. We have been taught that it is the other way around, and there are few examples of how living a life based on love and inspiration is the real answer to "success"! We must first get in touch with what our true values are, re-define what we believe "success" to be, and then live every moment in alignment with those values as our true foundation. I can only imagine what a world full of inspired, genuine, passionate people would be like. Illness, depression, frustration, anger, anxiety and stress in general will disappear as we change the way we engage the world. OH what a dream!!!
At the @gardenofeden we are living that dream and engage our passion everyday toward building a better life for ourselves and for humanity. We are an example of such a life!!
I'm not really familiar with the concept of a guild, how it would work and what it's benefits are. I'm excited to hear more about this!
The Steemit-team chatroom is set up for a team of artists coming together to brainstorm ideas for sharing art at Steemfest2. You can private message me on SteemitChat under my screenname. I"m excited to hear where your discovery takes you.
Excellent commentary!
Perhaps part of the function of an art guild is precisely to challenge the old ways and to try to educate artists on the value of getting their egos out of the way... because we can all benefit from cooperation.
One of the beauties of Steemit is that we can "give" without being out-of-pocket, which would otherwise be worrisome to the stereotypical "starving" artist. Whether we are able to give a few cents or a few dollars through our upvotes... the thing here is cooperation to the benefit of the entire group.
100% agree, I think we are thinking on the same wave length here. If we all upvoted each other, fellow artists in a new kind of guild I mean, then this would be quite a money spinner for all. All would win in the long run. For example, I have fairly good Steem power and my vote can generate almost $2 depending on the price of Steem of course. As I understand the system I can do that about 10 times in one day. I dont lose a cent doing this. New artists would benefit from my vote more than I would theres, however, as their SP gradually increased then their upvote for me would also increase and then I begin to benefit also. As the price of Steem rises, which it will for sure., the amount of cash generated would be enormous. The trick here would be to agree to use all your upvotes towards Steem power. At least for an agreed amount of time. After that people could power down if they wish. But to quite honest, powering down so early is not wise. Holding on to Steem will make you rich in the future. It is rather like owning shares in Facebook when it started. Facebook did not start making money until after 7 years. Power-up as much as you can I say. In seven years time those who did will be millionaires.
Back to the Guild for a moment, we would also have to agree that artists only post quality work otherwise it would become all about the money and that would diminish the whole point. There has to be a balance, but I think it is achievable.
I agree with you! Let's work together and help each other with upvotes and resteems. Though my 100% vote is only about $0.50, if I find a great new artist, I'm happy to vote up to even 100%.
Of course I have favourites I vote frequently, and don't expect voting back.
As far as I understand it @kalmandra. Everyone can vote 100% power ten times a day (I will check this but I read it somewhere). So what do I do? Well I can be selfish and post ten posts and vote for myself each time. But In not sure you would get many followers or people wanting to read your posts. That would mean you are just doing it for the money. If that is true then there are better ways to make money. Another way is to use nine of your votes for those you follow and at least one of your 100% votes to help other artists in an group who all agree on the quality of the art. This means all in that group are guaranteed a daily 100% vote, including yourself of course. This would generate quite a nice sum every day which, if it was set to 100% power-up, would steadily increase to quite a sum getting bigger all the time. As each persons steem power grows, so does the daily income. Everyone wins if everyone shares. All it take sis one 100% vote from each member.
https://steemit.com/sac/@in2itiveart/steemarket-art-contest-sac-3-entry
I propose that we call it ArtsTeem - to play off of "steem"... and at the moment, I have no idea what to do to promote it. I SUCK at promotion... although we could do some form of Artist Trading Cards that represent a new form of crypto that we come up with - people on steemit are all about crypto - but I don't know "HOW" to do this. I am not very smart when it comes to promo at all...
One thing that I believe about ART is that it is really SHAMANISM and that is something that the powers that should not be want to stamp out of culture. They want pure consumerism and that's why artist's compete with each other. The cabal stripped art of it's true purpose... Art is for the Spirit - it is a spiritual pause and rejuvination -
The cabal does not want that. They want CONSUMERISM to reign.
thanx for your comment. "ArtSteem" sounds nice :)
creating effective trading cards could be a good initiative too. I'll think about it!
cool - I just wish there was an effective way to drag the attention away from MONEY
sure. artists needs money, of course, like anyone else. but it shouldn't lead their work.
That's not what I meant - the heavy hitters on Steemit constantly talk about crypto - how to get their attention ?
sorry. misunderstood :)
the whales look for original contents and active users so to earn max curation rewards. I think a group of artists posting with regularity and resteeming their posts can get more visibility for the whales too.
I hope u r right but I have been posting original content for over a year and only now and then have I been upvoted by a whale
maybe you can try different tags to reach a different crowd, until you find the people interested in your art
I love where this is going and 100 % support it. I got some other ideas I'll throw at you soon :)
thx @steemitqa! let's share our ideas and proposals! (I guess we can soon Zappl them ;) )
Zappl we will do! :)
upvoted, resteemed
and here is my entry
https://steemit.com/sac/@prostosun/sac-steemarket-art-contest-3-my-entry-silhouette-landscape-with-a-lake
Love it, yet another great inspiring challenge for Steemit.
thx! :)
I agree, there is lots to win if we use the potential as being a team of artists. I don't have any answers but encourage this initiative.
And great to see the SAC up and running again - the last one was really great. I'll try to participate.
One thing we maybe need as a community is to have more fun. I think @papa-peper's WILD & STRANGE is such an example.
My contribution is an Ugly-Art Contest, running this week.
Good luck with this one!
That is a great ideal...i will support that as we we artist need to creat a good environment for ourselves..to promote our work and beautiful of the art..
I will submit my art today God willing..and i will tell others/colleague who are into art work too..#togetherness we take art to the next level.
#Team #Success
Follow u.. u can follow me bck.
I really like the idea of artist/art content guild of sorts on Steemit... to serve both as a way to spread more awareness of artists' work, but perhaps to also serve as "community engagement" challenge.
There is a LOT of great art being shown on Steemit... and so much talent here. Perhaps an Art Guild could eventually expand to where it has "daily challenges" for everyone to be part of... for example, like @kalemandra's photography "color challenge" except we could have a different form of creativity challenge for each day of the week... each with its own tag, and also a new "primary tag" to designate anything the guild undertakes.
I agree with much of @arthuradamson's great comment... and especially that it may be time to try something new. Art is a difficult field these days, so collaboration makes more and more sense. Steemit is already a pretty progressive idea... and based loosely on a "giving economy" so maybe we can translate that to a core idea centered around giving to help each other.
thx for your comment! good ideas! I'll think about it! :)
working together and not in a selfish way is the golden rule, in my opinion
This is amazing! :)