borealisarts.myfastforum.org

[admin]

This question was taken from our previous forum on Mac groups, but is such a good question that I copied here:

A general question to the group:
I'm a regionalist painter, working with urban subjects, mainly cars, trucks, etc., and streetcars, trolley's, et.al.
Most of my subjects are in Tucson, with perhaps 10% coming from San Diego where I lived for 28 years.
However, recently I've been painting trolley subjects from cities obiviously NOT either Tucson or SD... these
include San Francisco, Memphis, Boston, Seattle and Charlotte, NC. These paintings are clearly not from here.
A fellow regionalist painter living in Seattle, has told me in his long history of exhibiting, he has never once
sold a painting in Seattle that wasn't of a Seattle scene; nor a painting in Portland, OR, that was clearly not of
Portland.
It's my feeling that you should exhibit GOOD ART, not paintings  that are geared to a specific audience,
however,  I'm curious how other's relate to this question.
Thanks,
Bill

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[admin]

Hi Bill,

Wow, great question.  Of course, the deeper issue is one that we always struggle with; does art exist for its own sake, or must it make some concessions to the marketplace?  My experience backs up the experience of your friend in Seattle.  We will sell 20 paintings of our local landscape before selling 1 of a beach scene, for instance.

I suppose the real answer can be found by answering this question:  did you just paint a Tucson street scene, or did you create a well-composed study of light, color and shadow, of which the subject just happened to be a street in Tucson?  But then the next question is; will the average art viewer be able to tell the difference?  Which then leads to the question; are you, as an artist, obligated to concern yourself with how your audience receives your work?  Arrgh! Too many questions!

As an art dealer, I'll often tell beginning artists this: "You have a right to express yourself, but you do not have a right to an audience."  So I suppose it is ultimately up to each artist to decide what their motivation is: to create, to sell, or a happy balance between both.

So I gave you a whole lot of words, with nothing actually having been said.  It is a gift I have!

Tyler, I'm interested to hear your thoughts on this.

Nathan

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