As I get to know more artists I’m finding that not only do some have day jobs but another passion outside of their art.

I have found doctors, engineers, welders and technical drafts-people. What’s fascinating to me is that these disciplines are considered left brain while art on a whole is consider right. You know, math and science.

Personally I don’t think that creativity is limited to one brain hemisphere. Einstein was very creative.

I wonder if by keeping these other careers private we are trying to live up to the artistic mystic. When in fact they may add credibility to another wise known flaky artist. OR is it the other way around? Admitting the you are a doctor, lawyer or an accountant means you’re not a serious artist?

Well these are points to ponder and I imagine you have good arguments for both.

As for me, I freely admit that I LIKE COMPUTER CODE! As they say in the WordPress world “code is poetry”. My other passion is over at Artbiz.ca

SO DO YOU THINK IT A BAD CAREER MOVE AS AN ARTIST TO EMBRACE YOUR OTHER SIDE AND COME OUT OF THE PROVERBIAL CLOSET?

Thanks to Lori Zebier whose admission inspired this post.

I met Bev Tosh in the early 90′s as a student in her figure drawing class at the University of Calgary. Later I attended her figure painting workshop at Series in Red Deer – twice. When I left my design business to pursue my art career full time an opportunity came available for studio space with Burns Visual Arts Society. Bev is one of the founding members of BVAS and I was honoured to have my studio space in the same building as her’s.

My tenure at BVAS was 4 1/2 years during which time I met some pretty amazing artists and made some great friends. I would still be there today if I hadn’t moved away from Calgary. I miss the creative energy of BVAS.

In 2007 I had the privilege of showing with Bev and our dear friend Elizabeth Clark (1947-2008), in our exhibition “Home Bodies” at Profiles Public Art Gallery in St Albert.
For me as emerging artist, this was a milestone and an exhibition that I will always be proud of.

Bev also provided me with the opportunity to work on her first WarBrides.com website when I was just starting Artbiz.ca.  We recently converted the old HTML site over to WordPress so that Bev could add and maintain her content. But more than that – At the time I was developing the WordPress Help site for artists and Bev generously acted as my editor, going through each tutorial one by one and offering feedback and telling me where to insert my commas (I’m really bad with commas).

Bev was very generous with her time; in fact Bev is simply a very generous person, period. Her work with the war brides is nothing short of profound. Collecting the stories and painting portraits about these amazing women who gave up life as they knew it to venture forth to a new country, Bev has captured the essence of a generation.

As a documenter and artist, Bev has single handedly become a historian and lecturer about war brides. Her exhibition “One Way Passage” has been shown as far away as New Zealand and she is currently working on a Dutch War Bride exhibition. For little or no monetary gain other than honorariums, Bev funds the travel, insurance and crating of her work.

Passion is just one of the best words that I can use to describe Bev. That and modest; she achieved R.C.A designation with little fanfair. R.C.A. is an acronym for Royal Canadian Academy, one of the highest honours for a Canadian Artist.

I once heard someone in the arts community say that Bev’s pursuit of the War Brides work was a career killer. I was shocked because I have always been under the impression that success as an artist wasn’t about the money but truth. Truth of concept, truth in passion, truth of self. If you sit and talk with Bev you will experience what passion is, what it looks like in someone that has it and aspire to reach that level of belief in yourself and your work.

So while we are all pondering where our next sale is going to come from, perhaps we could  define what it is to be an artist. When I moan and groan over my lack of commercial sales I think about what Bev has accomplished and ask myself what does my success as an artist really mean?

I have been very fortunate to have had a few studio visits over my career. The last one is of considerable note but before you get all glad on me; even though it lasted 3 hours, alas it did not lead to representation. But he was very generous with his time and for that I am very grateful.

This gallery owner said as he was viewing the piece that is pictured here, that it was “high art”. So what does that mean exactly? Is it just a nice way to say that my work isn’t salable?

This is what I found when I did a search on the term “High Art”.

---

Let’s make a list of the things that characterize high art and distinguish it from low art.

1. Complexity of formal properties.
2. Complexity of the responses to the works, which sometimes have no name.
3. The fact that a full and fuller understanding of the work (either the form or the content) allows for an ever fuller enjoyment of the work. One has to gradually grow into the work. It does not reveal everything it has in one exposure.
4. The fact that a full understanding of the work can enhance an understanding of other aspects of life as well.
5. The fact that great works of high art are cross-cultural. They can be enjoyed by people of other cultures who have no other experience of the culture that generated the great work. Each great work of art is potentially a work of world art, not subject to the conditions of its composition.
6. If, according to 5, the work does not fade with distance, it is also true that it does not fade with time.
7. Works of high art are deeply related to morality, in the widest sense of the term, and sometimes problematize morality itself.
8. High art has a history, in which styles, techniques, genres and the entire orientation of the work of art is changed. Properly speaking, low art has no history.
9. Works of high art are individual. They bespeak a personality behind the work. Low art is best when it is anonymous.

Read the rest of this article by Lawrence Nannery

---

So according to this particular gallery owner rather than trying to find gallery representation apparently I need a patron (one that supports, protects, or champions someone or something). So here goes…

WANTED: One (or two) filthy rich self made entrepreneurs from “high culture” with an appreciation of “high art”. Preference given to those with a slight feminist bend. Please apply within.

Over the years I have made 100′s of submissions and like you I have had gallery rejections way to many times. This isn’t a article about how to handle rejection. We all know that we just pick our selves up and dust ourselves off and try and try again.

This is a list of my all time favorite rejection letters, emails. Here goes…

“We are not accepting any submissions right now because we have too many artist.
Good Luck,”

If they have “way too many artists” would this not be a disservice to the gallery artists.  Okay; moving on…

---

“I wish I had the space, you would not believe how jammed up my backroom is!
We damaged two pieces this morning just trying to move things around… : (“

Good to know how you handle the work in your care…moving on.

---

“Are you doing a new series of encaustic work for the summer in a brighter palette?”

Not the right question (see my post Paint, sculpt, print what you want)

---

“Thank you for the update, but yours is not the work for me. Best of luck to you.”

Straight and to the point.

---

“Please remove us from your mailing list. Many thanks.”

Okay then…

---

One of my favorites:

“Thank you for your submission but upon review we feel your work does not fit with the curatorial vision of the gallery as we are looking for landscape artists.”

I submitted my encasutic landscapes.

---

My all time favorite:

“Thank you for contact. We love your work and hope to farther talk with you on your preferences for an exhibit in our space.”

“We would be interested in knowing if you are comfortable with showing single pieces or if you favor the all story with the all number in the series. Either way we would set dates with you for exhibiting in the coming year !”

“If this is conciliatory with your vision let us know and would be rather exciting if you were to send an example of your work for our tactile appreciation of it.”

I know it reads as an acceptance but here’s what happen:

I was thrilled that I received such a quick response, like the next day and in response to my email requesting their submission guidelines. It wasn’t a formal submission yet but I do send out all my emails with a link to my website in my signature. So I thought that they clicked through to my website and voila. Also I know that one of the gallery artists recommended me so I thought perhaps they prescreened me.

I decided rather than email back and forth that I would start the relationship off on the right foot and phone the gallery to talk in person. Which I did but was put through to voice mail. So I left a message thanking them and asking for a call back to discuss which series and which piece they would like me to send.

Nothing – no response.

So I sent an email, still no response.

Well anything could of happened. Maybe they went on vacation the very next day. Maybe (god forbid) someone died. I waited a week, still no response. I tried again to phone; voice mail and I left another message. Nothing.

Finally I sent one last email and to this day have never heard back. I can only guess about what happened and it is my guess is that they sent their email to the wrong artist and didn’t have the courage to fix or admit the error. Obviously I will never submit to this gallery again.

Moving on…

Do you have a favorite rejection letter you would like to share?