To Sell or Not To Sell?

The Russian

Coloured pencil on paper 42"x36"

C. Ascher

How come when I don’t post anything for awhile on my Blog, there is suddenly a large number of ‘audience’ from Russia in my statistics listing who don’t actually seem to be reading my posts? Just wondering.

Anyway.

I have an exhibition coming to an end at a local museum. It’s been strange not having my sculptures all over my house. I am at once happy for the extra space and missing them. The ones at the museum are part of my collection, some older works in my key themes and finishes I’ve held on to for inclusion with newer or new work in a solo. Unless I or the curator of the exhibition space have a specific vision for the exhibition, say a dedicated theme or concept, then the inclusion of ‘older’ work creates a continuity for my audience. They can see the evolution of my ideas and techniques.

This is a problem for new or inexperienced artists. They are so eager to sell, they put their pieces up for sale as soon as they’re finished. Before, that meant waiting for the exhibition, but today with the Internet, it’s almost an instantaneous thing. It’s a pity, because then artists apply for exhibitions but don’t have a representative body of work from which curators can build them.

My advice to artists as a curator is: don’t be too eager to ‘sell’. The first danger is that they won’t, a devastating disappointment for some who base their idea of artistic success on sales.  The second is that they will produce ‘for sale’, meaning that they will make their esthetic decisions looking out towards what they think MIGHT sell or what they see others sell (many paint landscapes for this reason). The third: It’s a real downer if artists haven’t yet established the actual market value of the work because it can be too easily under or overpriced, impacting the relationship with commissions or clients who want to bargain.

And fourth, it can mean not getting an exhibition in a not-for-profit context – say in an artist-run centre or a museum like the one where I showed – because the artist had not enough work available to show a curator or commit to an exhibition.

Sometimes, not selling the art is much better for the artist’s career.

Showing Emotion

Head Spaces: Bonzai

Clay, glazes

Claudine Ascher

I had dolls as a child. Of course I played with them, mostly by taking them on imaginary journeys, introducing them to magical and monstrous creatures of all kinds and telling them all kinds of stories. I loved to play with them this way, but always there was a part of me that felt sorry for them. See, their faces were blank no matter what, their eyes forever frozen in their zoned-out stare. I knew they were ‘my’ dolls, but

No matter what the adventure, no matter what funny or serious thing they were told, my dolls’ expressions never changed. They could show no awareness of the world we shared, nor contribute anything to it that I didn’t. I knew instinctively that in truth, they were secret agents: a bride doll, a baby doll, a red-lipped doll with feminine clothing, each forever an expression of her or his creator’s intent (this was pre- gender-neutral wording, though the dolls, genital neutral, were seemingly way ahead of their time).

Looking at art as my aesthetic sense awakened, I saw this same kind of facial neutrality in many of the represented people, at least in those that were given defined features. I looked at faces in painting and sculpture that were for the most part at rest, the people expressed emotion more through the attitude of their heads and the direction of their gaze than through the changes in their facial musculature. Women especially were mostly represented as if what they felt did not (could not) mar their  well-rendered physiognomy in any way. They were meant to be not individuals but representations of humanity, and facial expressions are too expressive of a specific personality.

It’s since I became a figurative artist myself, and worked extensively with models and created both two and tree-dimensional works that I understood something more about expression-neutral faces in art. 1) Models can’t hold smiles or frowns or feel strong, face-altering emotions during extended poses. 2) By their nature, artists working from photographs can lose the feeling of immediacy and spontaneity of the face-altering emotion; 3) Expressions are very difficult to render, even living, real gazes are difficult to  capture in works that aim to express ideas or concepts; better neutral than uncontrollably grotesque, comical or comic-book in ‘serious’ art; 4) representing a face mid-emotion often individualizes the subject and runs the risk of fixing the action in a specific moment rather than representing it as eternal.

So, to a figurative artist, the challenge becomes to be able to express emotion through facial expression without losing the feeling of a person in a moment while simultaneously expressing a universal human state.

Nobel's Dylan Dilemma

Blowing in the Wind

colour pencil on Stonehenge

30” x 44”

C. Ascher

It’s the big buzz these days: Bob Dylan was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature this year. Imagine that! Speculation and controversy have of course resulted - imagine, popular culture getting the nod from an exclusive organization often accused of being elitist (the divide between ‘the great’ and ‘the common’ has never been wider, with the latter edging the former back by sheer numbers, though in either case, it’s money that keeps the tug-of-war going).

Now, everyone’s on about Bob Dylan’s refusal to acknowledge the Nobel prize. It doesn’t surprise me. He is an artist, not ‘a performer’ in the do-what-everyone-expects sense of that word.. There has always been a huge dilemma for artists created by 1) the conflict between art for its own sake and commerce; 2) the very tricky relationship between personal truth and mass appeal; 3) peer recognition when it is re and mis-directed into competition and one-upmanship in endless awards ceremonies’; 4) the appropriation of celebrity and fame by those with political agendas or the desire to associate themselves with (buy?) success or credibility.

The Beatles stopped touring when they were overwhelmed by fan adulation, having come to a place as creators when they were more interested in music as a form of research and in pushing their own boundaries than becoming more and more peoples’ fantasies. They wanted to control their work, not be controlled in their work.

Artist can begin their careers wanting recognition and praise, they may be competitive with others of their art, but these are more about confirming that what they are creating is bigger than themselves. Once that is established, they turn their attention more and more to growing, evolving and mastering their vision. They have to, or they become little more than manufacturers, repeating formulas for mass consumption. This is what makes great artists greater, not awards that in the end mean nothing if they come with strings - and the Nobel comes with huge strings, not least of which to force artists who don’t need that kind of validation into ethical dilemmas relative to politics and money.

Dylan doesn’t need to explain his actions. Let people interpret them as they are free to interpret his lyrics. That’s what poetry is about isn’t it? That’s what art is about. If the Nobel people don’t get that then what’s the point of their awards?

New Realities

If They Can Do It

clay, underglazes, glazes

approx 14” circumference

C. Ascher

I have returned to the clay studio after nearly seven and some months off from a shoulder break. My right arm still doesn’t work well, but I can’t wait any longer. iI’s almost the end of August, I have an exhibition planned for January and clay takes time.

All I’ve been able to do over the past months is draw because while I’m ambidextrous when I sculpt, I do 2D work with my left hand. I’ve done some 190  drawings based on a kind of interpretative portraiture. Unable to work from models as is my usual, I’ve used pictures  from all my human and animal family and friend photograph albums as source material. 

Surprisingly, I really have enjoyed focusing in this way. The intense examination of photographs I’ve only ever looked at casually or nostalgically (practicing what I suggested in a previous blog entry) has given me some new insights about relationships, influences, attitudes and social conditioning. It was a forced exercise but turned out to be very valuable for my creative process.

The trick has been to return to three-dimensional thinking after so long with two dimensions. It’s a completely different brain that conceives full, weighted forms than the one that works from flat shapes and the illusion  of space and of volume. To draw ‘from life’, I have to transport forms that have depth, mass and weight to one physical plane with two dimensions, width and ‘height’, both in relation to the scale of the flat surface on which I’m working. 

Sculpture involves weight, mass, balance, volume, form, structure, and because the medium I work with is clay, it also involves chemistry, engineering and architecture. It also requires two equally working arms. Alas, my right arm is now inexplicably a good 1,5 inches shorter than my left - how the heck did that happen? -  the shoulder cracks like crazy, it hurts, and the muscles are just beginning to reform.  It seems that in the short term, I’m to be much more left handed than I’ve ever been in the past.T he new working reality. All I can do is adapt and hope things will go back to normal.

I approach my preparation to sculpt in the same manner that I approached training in competitive sport. I believe that art making is as much dependent on stamina, strength, focus and control, all art making is but especially sculpture, as synchronized swimming or high-board diving (my sports). And I find it as physically engaging as I did dance. Once the initial inspiration hits, the process of realizing the image in real time/space with a physical medium for presentation or exhibition is as rigorous as training for a competition or performance.

I just hope my joints are still up to the challenge.

The Artist Re-Natured

Proud

colour pencil on paper

44''x30''

C. Ascher

I had this faith, see. As a kid, I believed that artists were people with exceptional courage, creativity, passion, compassion and the kind of focus nature has, a focus fuelled by purpose. This is because they had vision that sees behind, beneath and beyond even the things other people dismiss as common, useless or base.

To my child’s eye, artists managed to see together and at once what others kept separate, things like ‘religion’, ‘psychology’, ‘philosophy’ and ’politics’, even when outside forces worked to silence or control them. I thought this is what gave them what people called talent’, what created their ‘fame’, this and their intimate and enviable relationship with the physical and metaphysical worlds through their media. 

I believed artists brought people together by inviting them through their works into a world of personal but inspirational emotions, impressions, expressions, speculations, ideas, understandings, conceptualizations, and imaginings. They encouraged and invited reactions in all who viewed their imagery, regardless of any consideration other than a shared human existence.

This faith is what led me to want to be like them and want to be with and support people like them, modest as our efforts might be by comparison. So I became an artist, an art educator, a gallery curator and an arts administrator. For well over 35 years I have served in these capacities, and in that time I have come in contact with hundreds of other artists. 

During that time, I have also come in contact with municipal politicians, municipal employees, educators, citizens with an interest in the arts, members of the general community, government bodies, granting agencies, other curators, dealers, buyers, collectors, children and adult students of art, in other words, with the entire population of personalities who in one way or another are involved in art and culture.

After all these contacts, I now understand that artists are people with the POTENTIAL to be exceptionally courageous, passionate and focused. Alas, I came to see that in fact, while artists I’ve met intend to BE artists, most lack two of the basic traits I expected to find in them: they are neither courageous nor truly aware. Most focus on self-promotion and on gaining a foothold in the ‘art millieu’ but stand by silently as they and their kind are sabotaged in all aspects of their lives. Well, no artists are not silent. I hear them complain bitterly about their lot without seeing them stand up and do the work required to change it. 

I don’t think an artist’s purpose should be simply to make art, gain approval and make money. An artist’s purpose should also be to protect and defend Art against all its detractors, those in governments especially who cut, cut and withhold funding to anything related to art and culture while making great gains from artists’  work both socially and economically. They keep artists poor, needy, beholden and afraid to make any waves whatsoever for fear of more cuts. They convince the public that they save money for more important things even as they rob huge sections of said public of their culture. 

My faith in artists hasn’t changed. However, I now see that many who make art or who call themselves artists are also beaten down and resigned to their lot. They accept the decisions made for and about them by others as if they’re children who need to be disciplined, and as a result their passion has become so internalized that it is for all intents silent and powerless. They don’t fight for what is their due and they live by what they are told, not least of which that to be respected they must be productive loners hidden in their studios and grateful for any attention at all.

My purpose outside my studio has become to help artists see the lie in that and find their courage. They can start immediately. They can develop relationships with local governments and communities to which they have direct access and become involved in creating their own opportunities as involved citizens who stand firmly behind the arts. It is their right.