Greetings … and welcome to my “show and tell”. I can’t believe I am actually “here”! I’m still trying to understand my desire to “have my own website”. Having gone without one for so long, satisfying this urge at this late time of my life seems rather redundant.
However, some reasons were worth considering …
Van Gogh was a Dutch painter who sold only one painting in his entire life. By today’s standards he would be diagnosed as manic-depressive and bi polar. He died broke, at the tender age of 37, disappointed and tired of the “bullshit” he managed to shoot himself.
Till this day his efforts generate millions of dollars yearly from tourists who travel to the Netherlands from near and far to see his wonderful paintings. If you happen to find anything, which has his signature on it, it’s probably worth enough to pay off the balance of your mortgage and then some. Lesson learned? Few artists earn a lot of money while they are alive. Leave enough “work” behind when you die and chances are someone will cash in on your labor and make you “famous”. This being the fact of the matter, it goes without saying that being an artist is not a good bet if you want to get rich, better to be an art dealer!
Do I want to break into a “niche” market maybe? For instance paint only landscapes or ships? Might there be a “niche” for me? Fat chance! You’ll find a little bit of everything in my work! Yes, including landscapes and ships. But I have never been able to paint any given subject exclusively, -I despise doing anything twice! Most of my work was born out of a personal experience of one sort or another.
And “experience” I have.To support my “artsy” desires over the years I have been “forced” to engage in more than 20 different occupations. One that comes to mind is when I was a “tireman”. My job was to change and fix truck tires… outside and by hand, at 20 below zero somewhere along the Nelson River between Winnipeg and the Hudson Bay. Read my poem “Russian Joe” and you’ll get my drift.
And oh yes … I was a “househusband” for 13 years. I taught my sons how to catch pigeons in the public square and introduced them to paper and pencils.
I was also a waiter in the Chinese restaurant below where I lived in Victoria’s Chinatown for nine years. Read my poem … “A Chinese prayer”.
I also worked at a stockbrokers firm in Toronto when the birth control pill came on the market. Need I go on?
But, I digress. To get back to the original question of why have a website at all it is first important to ask "why make art at all?" What, in the end, is the result of such endeavors? Well, a long life filled with ups and downs that is still going strong today, for one, but this is not so unique. What I'm left with that is unique, when it all boils down, is a closet full of paintings, not to mention the many scattered around the world that were sold or given away. Little peaces of my life. And what good are they in my closet? Though I have always been my own best collector, the answer is that they are no good at all in my closet. Artwork needs room to grow over time, and if they don't happen to sell like hot cakes, well there needs to be another way to set them free, and I guess thats what this website is really about.
However, some reasons were worth considering …
Van Gogh was a Dutch painter who sold only one painting in his entire life. By today’s standards he would be diagnosed as manic-depressive and bi polar. He died broke, at the tender age of 37, disappointed and tired of the “bullshit” he managed to shoot himself.
Till this day his efforts generate millions of dollars yearly from tourists who travel to the Netherlands from near and far to see his wonderful paintings. If you happen to find anything, which has his signature on it, it’s probably worth enough to pay off the balance of your mortgage and then some. Lesson learned? Few artists earn a lot of money while they are alive. Leave enough “work” behind when you die and chances are someone will cash in on your labor and make you “famous”. This being the fact of the matter, it goes without saying that being an artist is not a good bet if you want to get rich, better to be an art dealer!
Do I want to break into a “niche” market maybe? For instance paint only landscapes or ships? Might there be a “niche” for me? Fat chance! You’ll find a little bit of everything in my work! Yes, including landscapes and ships. But I have never been able to paint any given subject exclusively, -I despise doing anything twice! Most of my work was born out of a personal experience of one sort or another.
And “experience” I have.To support my “artsy” desires over the years I have been “forced” to engage in more than 20 different occupations. One that comes to mind is when I was a “tireman”. My job was to change and fix truck tires… outside and by hand, at 20 below zero somewhere along the Nelson River between Winnipeg and the Hudson Bay. Read my poem “Russian Joe” and you’ll get my drift.
And oh yes … I was a “househusband” for 13 years. I taught my sons how to catch pigeons in the public square and introduced them to paper and pencils.
I was also a waiter in the Chinese restaurant below where I lived in Victoria’s Chinatown for nine years. Read my poem … “A Chinese prayer”.
I also worked at a stockbrokers firm in Toronto when the birth control pill came on the market. Need I go on?
But, I digress. To get back to the original question of why have a website at all it is first important to ask "why make art at all?" What, in the end, is the result of such endeavors? Well, a long life filled with ups and downs that is still going strong today, for one, but this is not so unique. What I'm left with that is unique, when it all boils down, is a closet full of paintings, not to mention the many scattered around the world that were sold or given away. Little peaces of my life. And what good are they in my closet? Though I have always been my own best collector, the answer is that they are no good at all in my closet. Artwork needs room to grow over time, and if they don't happen to sell like hot cakes, well there needs to be another way to set them free, and I guess thats what this website is really about.