You know…that rut?

I think I find myself being pulled (my own doing BTW) in so many directions I’ll end up stuck in 4 or 5 ruts one day.

I’m not there yet…but I’m trying to prevent it from getting there.

Focus.

Focus.

Focus.

Fuck us.

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I used to be a “professional photographer”.

Big deal.

I used to charge thousands of dollars to take pictures at people’s weddings.

Big deal.

I have over a decade of experience with a camera to my eye.

Bid deal.

Now?

I haven’t made very much money directly from my photography in a while.

Making the switch from a working pro to an artist is probably harder than starting from scratch.  There’s this whole stigma that follows you.

“Oh…you used to do weddings.  That’s nice.”

You kinda get that from the gallery owners and art buyers.

I need to stop telling them that.

Sometimes, when I’m feeling a bit bogged down by financial worries, or just thinking about how this will all pan out, I think about the knowledge I have now and how I could easily tear up this town doing weddings and portraits again.  With my knowledge of website building, SEO, tons of built in contacts throughout the community (especially in the right tax bracket), I could easily become one of the top wedding photographers in West Texas.

But that’s not what I want.

It really wasn’t ever what I wanted.

At one time, sure, it mades sense.  Sometimes, financially, it still makes sense.

But man…I hate shooting weddings.

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I happen to think that the answer is quite a bit.  Or rather…way too much?

One might think that the real question should be: What are we “reaching” for?

As artists we tend to be introspective or perhaps retrospective.  I suppose it just means we are, in one shape or another, looking at some sort of perspective.  Whether it’s our own perspective or it’s an attempt at twisting the viewer’s perspective seems irrelevant to me right now.

In fact, the question at hand, “What are we reaching for?” is irrelevant to me right now.

I personally don’t care what you’re reaching for.  Nor, do I think, should you care what I’m reaching for, insofar as some convoluted or self prescribed perspective is concerned.

Truthfully, if you’re reaching for some predetermined outcome, or outcry, from me, when I see your art, you’re going to be sadly disappointed.  The same is going to be true for me.  If I, somehow, after battling my own low self worth as an artist, delusion myself into thinking that you’ll perceive what I want you to perceive when you look at my art…I’m going to be sadly disappointed.  It’s happened before and it’ll happen again.

The question that I’m most concerned with right now is WHY…why are we “reaching”?

I mean…is it drive?  Is there some “thing” that drives artists to create?

Why?

So that one day…after one of my photographs or paintings is sitting in some collector’s home that a critic or collector or curator or whomever will prove that I, a brilliant and poignant photographer, had a good eye for irony and hypocrisy, or composition, or juxtaposition, or whatever…

Crap.  It’s all crap.

Yet tomorrow…just like today…something will compel me (perhaps even drive me) to “reach” for some way to connect with my viewers/future collectors…whatever.

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It doesn’t.

Sometimes you feel like everyone is out to get you.

They aren’t.

Sometimes you feel like you just can’t do anything right.

You can.

It’s about pushing yourself forward. It’s about consistency. It’s about sticking to your guns. It’s about time and it’s about life.

Not everything you do in life is going to be a complete success. You will fail. Get over it and move to the next thing.

What you absolutely don’t want to do is not do anything at all.  You don’t really want to just wake up, go to work, go home, eat dinner, go to bed, rinse and repeat…do you?

Make something or make something happen.  Otherwise you’re just a cog in a wheel.

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Her doctor was great.

It’s not like we haven’t worked with him before.

He did my tonsils a short while back, then he did our oldest daughter’s tonsils less than a year ago.

This one, our youngest, only had to have ear tubes put in. Same day surgery and recovery. Much better than tonsils. 10 days of pain and frustration on everyone.

Surgery was around 7:30 AM and we were home before 10AM. After a big lunch and a long nap she was back to her normal self. Well…she is walking a little wobbly but it’s kinda cute.

Hopefully she’ll be in less pain and will be getting more sleep now. I hear that all of that drainage can be quite painful.

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In the past 3 years or so we’ve been through one surgery after another in our family.  I had my tonsils removed, then we had our oldest child’s tonsils removed, and now we send our youngest to have tubes put in her ears.

While I know it’s for the best I still can’t help but wonder if we’re doing things right.  We eat mostly organic, lead active lifestyles, enjoy art, culture, and plenty of family time.

There’s a part of me that wonders if living in West Texas is somehow having an undesirable effect on our overall health.  Are we, even with our healthy lifestyle, swimming upstream?

We live in oil country.  There are spills and leaks that potentially contaminate our water supply (do we still have a water supply?) and I grow fearful that if I don’t get my family out of here soon that other ailments may not be far off.

Maybe I’m just being an overly concerned parent?

It’s all just allergies…right?  Naturally.

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Just as every other artist in the world I’m taking time to reflect on how my art career is shaping up.

Verdict?

Not as good as I’d hoped, but I’m making headway.

That’s the important thing for me to remember.  Every time I write a blog post here or on any of my other sites (or sites that I write guest posts for) I’m increasing my brand across the Internet.

I’m still working out my goals for 2010 but I do know that an increased focus in branding and awareness of my own artwork is going to jump much higher on the priority scale.

While much of my success thus far has been an offshoot of promoting other people’s work I’m going to start pushing my photography to the masses on a more aggressive scale.

It’s a little scary.

Like most artists I suffer from a lack of confidence in my own work.  This is something I’ll probably have to deal with forever, but I’m dealing with it.

Self depreciation is common amongst artists of every medium but it shouldn’t stand in the way of how I market myself and my artwork.  Perhaps a little split personality is in order?

One of my goals for 2010 is to submit my work to 2 galleries a month.

That’s a ton more than I did this year but I believe it will pay off dividends.  At the very least hopefully I’ll get feedback from any of the rejections I will inevitably receive.  Learning from my mistakes has been key in growing as a person and as an artist.

Heck learning from my mistakes has made me a better husband and father as well (I’ve made plenty in those realms).

The ultimate goal, that I’ve never taken my eye off, is to get myself out of the rat race and into a lifestyle that will encourage my growth as an artist.

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Yeah, I’m geeking about some wicked industrial design.

“The Royal College of Art’s graduate show has opened, and this year, the show-stopper was a plug. Min-Kyu Choi impressed every passer by with his neat, apparently market-ready plug that folds down to the width of an Apple MacBook Air.”

You have to click over to the article to see how this innovation works.

I love it when Art and Tech collide.

Brilliant!

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They were getting ready to make some big announcements and open their site to the public and he was looking for some press in the photoblogosphere.

I respond to every email that I get.  Every. Single. One.

So as I ventured over to this new online gallery I was looking at it from two perspectives.

1. The photographer wanting to sell his/her work online.
2. The customer looking to find artwork online.

As I look at websites for reviews I try to put myself in the shoes of the target audience.  Actually, I do this on everything I review; software, products, gear, websites, etc.

I initially found DiscoveredArtists just to be okay.  I mean, off the bat, there wasn’t really anything that “special” about it.  It wasn’t very 2.0 in terms of design but it was pretty easy to navigate and there was really good artwork there.  The photography section was really lacking in both quality and quantity, but the other works were really good with some outstanding artwork and some artwork that, while not my particular taste, I felt would sell quite well.

I needed to get a conversation going with the owner because I was pretty hard pressed to do a “review” for the site and recommend it to the readers of a photo tips website.  I mean, most of the audience there is just looking to get better with there cameras, not sell their work next to some truly talented folks.  Some of their work, should they sign up for the service, probably wouldn’t compete well.  It’s like sending a little league player to fill in for a spot on a pro roster.  Just waisting space on the virtual bench.

Brian and I talked a lot about his vision for the website, their marketing plans, their background, and I was hooked.

This was different.  Not completely different from anything I’d seen before, but I was really impressed by his knowledge of the industry, his passion for art, and his ability to see how social networking online was going to play a big role in how the brand of DiscoveredArtists was going to become a competitor on the web.

The one thing that probably impressed me most, and ultimately what helped me decide to join DA, was that they were charging artists!

Now most people would be put off by this.  Why would you charge artists an annual fee and then take a percentage of the sale as well?  Who would sign up for this?

I would.

And so would most artists who have had the pleasure of dealing with “real world” galleries where it isn’t uncommon to pay 50% of your sales, or more, to the gallery.  DiscoveredArtists charges at most 10%

So would most artists who get fed up with uploading images to other online galleries to see their works of art fall well below the first few pages because a handful of other “artists” are uploading their freakin’ vacation pictures.  Are you kidding me?  I see this happen on Redbubble and Imagekind all the time.

I showed my work to Brian and he offered to make me a “founding artist” for the site.

What do I get out of it?

I get to sell my art work next to other committed artists.

The ones who really put the effort into their work.  The ones who want full control of how their work is seen and delivered.  The ones who are willing to put themselves in a higher pool of talent by eliminating those looking for a fast free way to make money off their vacation photos.

I get to print my work and price it as I see fit.  I also get to deliver it with my packaging and throw in any other promotional materials I see fit.

Here’s the deal.  If DiscoveredArtists becomes one the premier places to find the highest concentration of truly great artwork online (and I think they will) then I benefit hugely by having my work right next to theirs.

My contemporary fine art photographs benefit from being in the same online gallery as David Colon whose work has been exhibited at venues such as The Morris Graves Museum of Art (CA), Alpan Gallery (NY), Viridian Artists Gallery (NY), CameraArts Magazine, Fraser Gallery (MD), Washington Gallery of Photography (MD), Denver Int’l Airport (CO), and Old Town Art Gallery (CA), among others or Niki Sands whose list of exhibitions and accolades is longer than my arm.

Today Brian Walker announced that he was making a change to DiscoveredArtists.

DiscoveredArtists is now 100% curated.

DiscoveredArtists.com Goes 100% Curated and By Invitation Only from DiscoveredArtists on Vimeo.

This, I believe, will put them on a higher level yet again. It isn’t long before DiscoveredArtists becomes THE premier online art gallery. I’m happy to be along for the ride.

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green bottle and friends

Sometimes the things that people collect can and organize can really become great eye candy.

We were staying at a really nice little cottage just outside New Braunfels, Texas this past summer.  Of course we were there to float the Guadalupe River.  My wife and I, along with some of our closest friends, had a such a great time.

Really needed that escape from the dry deserts of West Texas.

The cottage had so much personality.  Lot’s of little trinkets to photograph.  Used my camera quite a bit while we were there.

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