Diary of a Journey

Did a day Graphic Recording yesterday. A day of listening intently and drawing out the story in public is always very tiring. But I did managed to get three collagraph plates started today and am looking forward to proofing at least one tomorrow.

I found two quotes which feel appropriate to the place I find myself in:

“There’s a myth among amateurs, optimists and fools that beyond a certain level of achievement, famous artists retire to some kind of Elysium where criticism no longer wounds and work materialises without effort”

Mark Matousek

and

“Artists don’t get down to work until the pain of working is exceeded by the pain of not working”.

Stephen DeStaebler.

Rejection is always hard to deal with especially when it comes with no feedback as it so often does in the art world. Is it me, my work, this particular image or my reason for creating that is being rejected.

Is it all just seen as rubbish. Do they think there is something I need to change? Would I want to change it if I knew.

But the main high comes from creating work that is boosted when others connect with it. To continue creating I have to sell work or sustain myself in other ways so I have to expose the work to the world and possible rejection.

While creating there are always moments of doubt. Rejection feeds the doubt and makes one question the the work and ones reason for creating. So rejection becomes part of the creative process by keeping the the question alive and the work honest. But, rejection still remains painful and hard to deal with.

Got really excited this morning a big parcel arrived in the post. It’s the first posting of the O.U. materials for the MA in Art History that I start in February. Excitement is dampened a bit by apprehension – is this a step too far?

I need to earn my living. I only have a couple of Graphic Recording gigs in the diary and to be honest I just haven’t got my head around trying to find galleries to show my work.

I have had an application in for Axis for about 10 days but haven’t even had an acknowledgement that they have received it.

Clearly submitting work to The Mall Galleries Exhibitions requires too big a stake for the odds.

It’s been that sort of day.

Just had the hard copy of Call for Enteries 2011 from Mall Galleries. I Can’t find any explanation as to why I should, as an artist over 35, pay twice as much per work as an artist under 35?

I am also not sure that the finances stack up in any way that I can make sense of. If I decide to put work forward it will cost £72.00 for six works, about £200.00 for framing and£200.00 to get them down to London. With incidental expenses about a £500.00 investment.

Given the numbers of enteries the odds of getting work selected is pretty slim and the possibility of making a sale? Added to this there is a 45% commission + 20% to be added to the price of the work if a sale is made.

The answer seems to be to make a living as an artist you have to be perpetually under 35, live in Lodon and be a very luky gambler.

I just got an e-mail from the Mall Galleries for the Royal Society of British Artist Exhibition. The fee per work is £6.00 if you are under 35years of age and £12.00 if you are over that age?

Not sure I get the logic. Or is it just pure ageism?