The word passion is derived from the Latin passio, meaning “to suffer.” What are you willing to suffer for? I realize that there is actual suffering in this world, and I don’t have the temerity to claim to know what that feels like, but are you willing to allow this thief into your room every day to steal your precious time on earth? Painting is a living, breathing thing, and, like all living things, it has to be fed. It demands constant attention and sacrifice; that’s why it’s called a discipline. Joan Mitchell told me, “Find what you love to do and let it kill you.” Life’s only commodity is time. How will you spend yours?
When asked if an artist is born or made, my answer is, Both. You have to be born an artist, but that plus $3.00 will buy you a cup of coffee. All the talent in the world is meaningless without an atomic work ethic. An artist is someone who is willing to work harder than anyone in the room at stuff no one else cares about; not many people would spend an entire day mixing pink or drawing a bell pepper until their fingers bled, but I bet you would. Sure, an artist must be born, but what often passes for artistic merit is just an insensible set of priorities. The next time you hear an artist referred to as “critically acclaimed,” substitute “colossally lucky and tragically lonely.”
I am a great believer in luck, and I find the harder I work the more I have of it.
—Coleman Cox
Size Matters
How do our physical bodies relate to our paintings? It is interesting how some artists yield to their size, while others defy it. For example, Frank Stella and Helen Frankenthaler seem too small to produce such massive works, while Joan Mitchell and Richard Diebenkorn had robust carriages that matched the muscularity of their paintings. I’m six feet three inches tall and weigh 245 pounds, which could qualify me as a cast member of Disney World’s Country Bear Jamboree. Although the way I move through the world lacks nimbleness and grace, my clumsiness also gives my paintings a power and physicality that matches my stature.
Being tall has other advantages. People can spot me in long lines, I tower above umbrellas on rainy days, and I can breathe fresh air in crowded subway cars while others have to stare at pits and crotches. There are disadvantages too. Theater seats are torture devices, coach class in airplanes is painful, and I have to wiggle butt-first out of taxicabs because there isn’t enough space to swing my legs over. Size is a factor in why I became a painter in the first place. I wanted to be a magician, but my hands grew too large to perform convincing sleights. However, my beefy fingers and broad wingspan were ideally suited for wielding fat brushes and fistfuls of color. I’m a failed magician who paints.
Klutz. Jemez Springs, NM. 2015.
Each day I go to my studio full of joy; in the evening when obliged to stop because of darkness I can scarcely wait for the next morning to come. . . . [I]f I cannot give myself to my dear painting I am miserable.
—William-Adolphe Bouguereau
SHOWING
Carny
I can paint anytime, anywhere. This is because I made stuff long before I knew what an artist was. I never aspired to be an artist; the word makes me cringe because it implies trying to win the approval of others. I started drawing in first grade, painting in fourth, and declared myself an artist at ten. No approval necessary.
My professional career kicked off at eighteen with two sales to a prominent local collector who saw my work in the Guild of South Carolina Artists exhibition at the Gibbes Museum of Art in Charleston. I kissed the check and thought about ways to get my work seen by more people. When you’re unknown, the only way to get your work shown is to do it yourself. I exhibited in public libraries, restaurants, corporate hallways, a firehouse, a maximum-security prison, outdoor markets, and medical office lobbies, and even did impromptu shows by hanging paintings on the wrought-iron fences of downtown Charleston. All of those locations had one thing in common: they were places people had to be for other reasons. Whether having pudding or dialysis, people were moving from elevator to escalator, and therefore I had a millisecond to grab their attention.
Other than painting, two of my favorite things in the world are barbecue and magic, both of which can be found at carnivals and state fairs. I always admired the artists who painted circus banners for their design acumen, clarity of intention, and purposeful execution. They taught me that, if you are going to impinge on someone’s consciousness, even for a second, you have to grab them by the earlobes with a composition that looks good from twenty-five feet away. By copying such banners, I learned that larger shapes should occupy the perimeter and gradually get smaller as the eye winds into the climax of the image. Carnival posters also taught me that the entire rectangle itself should be considered the first form, just as the four sides supply the first four lines; everything that comes after should relate to those primary truths.
I still paint with the assumption that the viewer has somewhere else to be and I have less than a minute to convince them to slow down and look. From Giotto to John Kensett to Joseph Stella, great painting begins with confident, economical design.
Self-Promotion
Most of my early art education took place in the public library. I especially liked reading essays written by painters that encouraged me to try writing about my work. Along with sales, scholarship is a gallery’s job; therefore, the more articulate an artist is, the better the gallery can do its job. Dealers are the conduit between your studio and the public, so a few words directly from you will give them speaking points on which to build; check out the writings of Walter Sickert, Robert Henri, Fairfield Porter, and Gerhard Richter. Writing about your work is as important as drawing and mixing color, because it helps you speak more intelligently in studio visits with dealers and collectors, in gallery talks, and with the press. It’s hip to claim that your work will “speak for itself,” but it won’t. You have to help it.
Before having gallery representation, I promoted myself by reading about how Colonel Tom Parker furthered Elvis Presley’s career in the 1950s. For example, I learned how to write a concise press release and design glossy postcards to create an air of excitement about new works. I also invented a fake publicist to send out press packets to galleries and magazines with images and pithy quotes that read well in airplanes, on the toilet, or on airplane toilets. Having a fake publicist allowed me to say, “Let me speak to my manager,” which sounded a hell of a lot more impressive than “Golly, sure.” An artist must be two people inhabiting one body, a maker and a talker. Artists must brand themselves. This is not a sales strategy, but a way of maintaining focus and, thereby, power. Here are four suggestions that helped me brand myself:
First, be kind. Many people work hard to create a steady, robust market for my paintings. Being pleasant to work with has gotten me far in this business.
Second, define your job description. The word artist doesn’t mean anything. Every pinhead who bakes gourmet cookies is an artist. What is your job? I am not an artist, not a painter, not even a landscape painter, but a Southern landscape painter who lives and works in New York City. That’s my superpower under the sun.
Third, learn how to speak in front of people. Convey to them two things: what you do and how you do it.
Fourth, send thank-you notes on fine stationery. This practice shows that you took the time to sit down and express gratitude. Not enough people do this anymore, and it makes a great impression.
My self-promotion started to pay off. In 1988, a respected curator from a local college gallery saw my piece in a group show, read about me in a magazine, and asked to visit the studio, aka our back porch. I set up a mini exhibition in our living room. My mother served hot tea, biscuits, and blackberry jam on her wedding china and arranged fists of gardenias in a crystal vase on the table, soaking the air with their scent of thick cream and sugar. Southerners take presentation seriously. I spoke to the curator and his assistant about my process in clear language and, by the second cup of Earl Grey, had landed my first solo show.
In the fall of 1989, my exhibit
ion at Francis Marion College Art Gallery in Florence, SC, opened to the public. I composed an artist statement and printed a price list on which I put a few red dots; the paintings hadn’t sold, but the dots created the perception of demand. Four of the paintings did eventually sell, and group shows followed in larger Southern cities like Charlotte, Charleston, and Wilmington.
The next step was mass mailings. I glued small photos of my paintings to sheets of tan card stock and folded them into wallet-sized brochures, which I made cheaply at Kinko’s. The front flap featured an image, and inside was a brief statement and list of exhibitions. I’d visit all of the bookstores in the Myrtle Beach area and slide one into every magazine that had to do with art, architecture, finance, travel, local life, food, and design, a practice that continued when I moved to New York. I would visit ten to twenty bookstores in a weekend, even plastering up homemade posters in subway stations. Late one night, at the 23rd Street A, C, E subway station, I saw Keith Haring at the end of the platform drawing on the wall with a fat black marker. We shook hands and continued breaking the law. I don’t know if any of it helped, but I loved pounding the pavement and getting the word out.
Here is a basic template for an artist’s press release:
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Title: keep it simple
Who
What
Where
When
Paragraph 1: overview of exhibition (number of works, inspiration)
Paragraph 2: specifics (techniques, art historical references, context)
Paragraph 3: list of exhibitions, collections, awards
Name and phone number of contact. Email address.
(Photo: Wilson Baker)
From a 1993 magazine feature. I was on my knees in Shem Creek, SC, getting attacked by minnows.
My first solo show. Francis Marion College, Florence, SC. 1989.
Yes, I’ll Do It.
In 1995, I had a solo show at St. John’s Museum of Art in Wilmington, NC, now called the Cameron Art Museum. The museum paid for me to fly down for the opening and a lecture. I had the flu but boarded my LaGuardia flight anyway, with a fistful of antinausea pills and cold medicine washed down with lime Gatorade. An hour later, I became violently ill. That cocktail prompted a dangerous chemical reaction in which my muscles contracted and froze. Unable to speak or stand, I thought I was having a seizure and that my heart was going to stop. My fingers clenched into sweaty knots, and I gulped down each breath, frothing at the mouth; I couldn’t even get my driver’s license out of my back pocket so they could ID my corpse. Fortunately, a decisive flight attendant and a wise captain emergency-landed the full USAir Boeing 737 in Norfolk, VA, while two Marines from Parris Island, SC, dragged me off like Keith Richards on strychnine, and put me into an ambulance with full cherry top waiting on the runway. Just as the emergency responders were about to pump my stomach, I threw up and was rushed to the hospital for an examination and intravenous rehydration. An hour later, I felt strong enough to work on some tree drawings in my sketchbook, which piqued the interest of my doctor, who knew a local curator, thus starting a correspondence that lead to another show a few years later. I drove.
Take every opportunity to speak about your work and meet everyone you can; you never know where it will lead. Answer every phone call with, “Yes, I’ll do it.” When starting out, accept every chance to exhibit no matter where or how remote the location; I’ve sold paintings to prominent collectors out of group shows in country towns and have had curators contact me after seeing my work in underlit frame shops.
Throughout the 1980s, I drove my blue Honda Accord full of paintings all over the Carolinas doing my fully produced shows, which included paintings, drawings, press releases, a price list, slides for mailings, hanging tools, plastic wrapping, and even a cheese plate for a reception. All someone had to do was say yes, and I’d show up looking like Gomer Pyle on speed and give them a Brian Rutenberg show. When I moved to New York in the late 1980s, I hand-carried paintings one at a time through Manhattan snowstorms and hauled them on jam-packed subways to any place that would exhibit them. Now I have people who say no for me, but, for someone who hates flying, I still do a lot of it. The pills have been replaced by noise-canceling headphones and Zinfandel. I thank God when the plane takes off, and I thank Delta when it lands.
Show Business
If you’re a painter then you work in show business, and, as the voice actor Billy West said, “There is one show business.” Regardless of whether you write string quartets or strip at bachelor parties, you and I have basically the same job. We amplify experience, construct a proscenium around it, and present it back into the world to make people feel alive.
The art world is a multibillion-dollar business, and, like any business, galleries must generate sales to keep their doors open. If they don’t think they can sell an artist’s work, or if the work doesn’t jell with their aesthetic vision, they will pass. This is a business decision. For a gallery/artist relationship to work, each party must have something to gain. The art world is fickle. By the time the newest fashion hits magazines or appears in biennials, it is already outdated. Since many collectors look with their ears, not their eyes, chasing trends is a full-time job and a waste of precious time.
If you want a long career in show business, then become your own best friend, period. The best way to start a career is to keep your expenses modest and expectations low. Ask yourself why you want to paint in the first place. Read Letters to a Young Poet by Ranier Maria Rilke and The Three-Cornered World by Natsume Soseki, then read them again. They will reveal what an artist’s role in the world is.
The artist-to-audience ratio for painting is 1:1. Seeing is a solitary endeavor. Like a hooker, a painting does its job up close, one customer at a time. I find it pretentious when contemporary artists claim to effect social change by hanging their paintings in a gallery. If you want to reach society, use a social medium: start a YouTube channel, write a blog, make videos or podcasts, use Facebook, or make street art. Sitting alone in your creepy studio smearing colors on canvas won’t reach the masses, because the masses don’t go to galleries. Moreover, claiming to make political art is a marketing strategy; it doesn’t mean anything, because all art is political. A painting about fracking is freaking great. It’s topical subject matter. However, a floral still life by Henri Fantin-Latour or Janet Fish is just as political—more so because it’s subversive, masquerading as something else entirely.
Whether you’re painting images of chemical warfare or a potful of mums, you’re still trying to impinge on the viewer’s consciousness and influence the way he or she perceives the world, which is the very definition of politics. Like politicians, artists are part of a constituency that aims to provoke, subvert, and influence others, enforcing the singular message that art knows what’s best. A painter uses foreground, middle ground, and background to take the viewer from one place to another just as a politician writes policies to take his or her constituency from this place to a better one.
Even the business of art has political undertones. As I squeeze paint out of a tube, I am reminded that it was someone’s job to put it in there, someone with a family to feed and educate, probably without health insurance and likely in an underdeveloped country. With those tubes, I make commodities that are bought and sold in a commercial marketplace because I have a family to feed. I’ve never been one of those artists who castigates the capitalist art market; I’ve seen shows in galleries that lambaste the commodification of art, yet there is always a price list at the front desk. My primary representative is Forum Gallery, located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Fifty-Seventh Street in New York City, the most visible and desirable retail corner on earth. If that’s not a political statement, then I don’t know what is.
The commercial art market originated in the late sixteenth-century Netherlands. As cities expanded in the thriving trade economy, artists started producing smaller works (landscapes, portraits, and genre pain
tings) to satisfy a growing middle class. Artists could earn real money selling prints of their paintings, which appealed to broader audiences with modest budgets. They made work to sell. I receive many emails from artists asking if painting a trompe l’oeil ceiling in their neighbor’s kitchen or making watercolors of sailboats because they appeal to summer tourists means they are selling out. Of course they’re selling out. So what? Piet Mondrian painted flowers for his entire career because they satisfied a deep need in him, but he also painted them because they sold. Artists have to survive, and that can mean prostituting your skills from time to time. But earning scratch on the side doesn’t mean you have to stop making the paintings that fill you with a rage to live, the ones that keep you awake at night. One of my sell-out jobs was designing and building table centerpieces for the International Rock Awards in New York City in 1989. I made a few thousand dollars and hung out with Keith Richards and Ozzy Osbourne. I also gained a story, and, if there is one thing I’ve learned in my fifty years, it’s that you do everything for the stories.
Doing whatever it takes to keep making your work isn’t a sign of weakness but of badass, weaponized strength. When I was first starting to hit in major cities like New York and San Francisco in the early nineties, a well-known university invited me to be a visiting artist for three days. The director of the art department said they had come up with a number for my three-day visit, and it was $5,000. I politely declined and told him that it was more than I could afford at the time. He looked at me like the porch lights were on, but no one was home.
Clear Seeing Place Page 10